


catch & release

by chuwuyas



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: (they are best friends your honor), Alternate Universe - Phantom Thieves, Alternate Universe - Talentswap (Dangan Ronpa), Attempt at Humor, Awkward Boners, Car Chases, Detective Momota Kaito, Detective Oma Kokichi, Eventual Romance, Flirting, Humor, Kaito & Kokichi are partners, M/M, Minor Injuries, Mystery, Not Beta Read, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Phantom Thief Saihara Shuichi, Rating May Change, Riddles, Slow Burn, because although they flirt they don't immediately get together, even more flirting holy shit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 02:47:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 47,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28806063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chuwuyas/pseuds/chuwuyas
Summary: Ouma wasted no time before hurriedly snatching the notebook from Momota’s hands, looking at what the man had written. Harukawa and Saihara curiously moved to peer over his shoulders.“Since you were so smart last time, how about we play a game?Bank of Yokohama, this weekend, when the sun goes down.Catch me if you can, detective ;)”He blinked at the note, once, twice.Uh.“Dude,” Momota said, with a mix of disbelief and amusement in his voice. “Dude, I think he’sflirtingwith you.”-A phantom thief of keen intellect called “Moriarty” has been terrorizing Yokohama for over a year and Ouma Kokichi, a detective from the Future Foundation Detective Agency, is assigned the case when the police give in and hand the case over to the agency.In the middle of a frantic chase, a physical game of tag and a mental game between two geniuses, falling in love ensues. Naturally.(or; the phantom thief/detective AU we all love, with a twist.)
Relationships: Harukawa Maki & Momota Kaito & Oma Kokichi & Saihara Shuichi, Harukawa Maki/Momota Kaito (minor), Momota Kaito & Oma Kokichi, Oma Kokichi & Saihara Shuichi, Oma Kokichi/Saihara Shuichi
Comments: 120
Kudos: 207





	1. cops & robbers

**Author's Note:**

> OWO what's this? fic author chuwuyas writing saiouma again, but this time venturing out with a longfic? It's more likely than you think.
> 
> I've been meaning to write a phantom thief/detective au for SO LONG, so i finally did it –but WAIT! Saihara is the phantom thief here???? Woah, I wonder how this will turn out *winks with both eyes because I can't wink with only one* ;)
> 
> The first half of the chapter is kind of slow, more introduction stuff and all that, but from the middle to the end it's faster.
> 
> Enjoy!! Ooohh I'm excited!!

_❝ I’m not a gangster tonight, don’t wanna be a bad guy,_   
_I’m just a loner baby,_   
_**And now you’ve gotten in my way.** ❞_

_– I Can’t Decide, Scissor Sisters_

**• • •**

**Yokohama, September 12th, 2018. Wednesday.**

The leaves cracked softly under his feet as he made his way towards the detective agency.

Despite the early hour, the weather was surprisingly pleasant outside, not hot but also not too cold, just enough for him not to shrink into his cardigan and shiver as the cool wind hit his skin as he walked towards his destination. In the streets and sidewalks, there still weren’t as many red, brown and orange leaves around as it usually should be, being mid-September but still-not-quite fall, and the ones that _were_ around still hadn’t fallen from the tall trees, so he had to entertain himself with the few, old ones that were already scattered around the streets and not entirely broken. The tall trees, however, were already painted the typical multicolored mix of warm colors that fall usually brought, an odd but welcome highlight among the tall, faded gray skyscrapers that rose towards the pale blue skies, and due to the early hour, not many people made him company in the streets –the few ones that did, though, all took the highways in their cars, so he had all the fallen leaves for him.

Quietly, he sighed as he watched the cars passing by while he stepped on the leaves to break them as he walked towards his job. Maybe he should consider getting himself a car –it wasn’t like his job didn’t pay him enough to afford a good one, after all.

He arrived at the agency after fifteen minutes or so of walking, living close enough to the building he worked at so he could walk there without bothering to ride a train, but still far enough for the short walk to be quite tiresome. Inside the building, he waved at the janitor and at the clerk at the front hall before following towards his office on the sixth floor, pressing the elevator’s button with his elbow and taking a deep breath as the elevator’s doors closed on him to recover his breath from the short but tiring walk. He hummed the elevator song.

Once the elevator stopped on his floor, he was met with the sight of his office’s door already open, which made him stop on his track and gasp in surprise, because usually he was the one to arrive first and open the door. Which meant his partner was already there and they wouldn’t be late for their tasks for the day.

Finally, some good news.

“Oh?” He said as he walked into the office and left his bag over his desk. “Is it my birthday? Because for what other reason would my beloved partner show up-” and then he promptly deflated once he saw that the person who opened the office was not his partner. Of course. “...Ah. It’s just you, Harukawa-chan.”

She shot him a look from over her shoulders. Sighed. “Ouma.”

Ouma sighed dramatically and smiled at her, waving lazily as he sat down behind his desk and rested his feet over it, reaching for his computer with his left hand to turn it on. “I know you and Momota-chan are courting each other and all that nasty, heterosexual stuff, but may I ask you what are you doing in our office without us being here? I’m pretty sure he won’t appreciate his girlfriend fumbling around his stuff without him knowing it. Also, I’m pretty sure working here doesn’t give you the right to go breaking into other people’s offices as you please.”

“I’m not… _Fumbling_ around his stuff,” Harukawa pressed her lips together, then resumed her search for whatever thing she was looking for in Momota’s desk. “At least not in the way you think I am. And do you seriously think you’re one to lecture people about breaking into other people’s offices? Also, not that it’s any of your business, but we are not dating.”

“Of course you’re not,” Ouma scoffed, rolling his eyes. As he waited for his computer to start, he leaned backwards on his chair until the front wheels left the ground and crossed his arms behind his head. “What are you looking for, Harumaki?”

Instantly, Harukawa stopped fumbling around Momota’s stuff, turned her head toward him and gave him the coldest look she managed to make. “Do you wish to _die?_ Do _not_ call me that.”

Ouma was unbothered. “Whatever,” he said, waving a dismissing hand. “Tell me what you’re doing here.”

“Why do you care?”

“Because this is my office too and I do not want people around when I’m not here. Simple.”

Harukawa gave him a measured look, then closed her eyes and sighed, returning to her search for whatever the hell she was looking for in Momota’s desk. “I did not look into your stuff, if that’s what you’re concerned about. I do not wish to see what hideous things you hide in those drawers of yours.”

“If you’re thinking I have porn here, you’re wrong. I hid my magazines somewhere else after Miu-chan stole some of them. I don’t want that nasty pig stealing my precious magazines again.”

Harukawa twisted her nose in disgust, making a grimace. Then she squinted her eyes and frowned, looking at him briefly from over her shoulders again. “Why- why do you have _porn_ on your work desk?” she then promptly regretted asking, closing her eyes and inhaling deeply again. “You know what? Don’t answer it. I don’t wanna know.”

“I don’t have porn on my work desk anymore, I just told you.”

“I don’t wanna know.”

“Momota-chan sometimes borrows them, though.”

“I said I _don’t_ wanna know.”

“He likes the kinky ones.”

“Do you wish to _die?”_

Ouma giggled, watching as she hurriedly fumbled through Momota’s stuff until she apparently finally found what she was looking for. Then, she quickly closed the drawers and stormed out of the room, face as impassive as ever but with a slight tint of pink on her cheeks. Ouma laughed again, this time a little louder than before, then stretched in his chair and yawned as soon as he heard the elevator closing and leaving the floor, sighing with a small smirk on his lips as he opened the necessary tabs on his computer to work.

Now that he was completely alone, without Harukawa around to keep a keen eye on him, he could finally start to work.

He uncrossed his legs and removed them from desk, adjusting himself in his chair so he was sitting on it cross-legged, then opened his Spotify playlist and pressed shuffle. He sang along with the singer as he waited for Momota to arrive or the telephone to start ringing, whatever happened first.

After ten minutes or so, the telephone rang, beating Momota in the imaginary race created in Ouma’s mind.

He picked up the phone, and absently twirled the coil cord between his fingers. With his free hand, he scrolled through his Twitter feed as he answered the call.

“Future Foundation Detective Agency, how can I help you?”  
  


**-x-x-x-  
  
**

Momota ended up arriving two hours later, holding two cups of coffee and smiling as if he was not almost three hours late to work.

Honestly, Ouma still did not understand how he hadn’t been fired yet.

“Morning, Ouma,” Momota said as he stepped into their office, placing one of the cups in front of Ouma and sipping from the other as he walked to his desk and sat down in his chair with a loud ‘creek’, turning on his computer with his foot. “Any cases yet?”

“Good evening, Momota-chan,” Ouma said, picking up his cup and peeking inside –just as he expected, it didn’t have coffee, but grape soda. He happily took a sip. “A few, but nothing too interesting,” he replied, eyeing Momota from over his eyelashes. “You know, just the prime minister asking for help with a suspected betrayal and attempted assassination. But I declined it.”

Momota instantly choked on his coffee, coughing for a moment, then widened his eyes. “You fucking _what!?”_

Ouma giggled, rolling his eyes. “It was a lie, of course,” he giggled again as Momota groaned, leaning backwards in his chair until the front wheels left the ground. He took another sip from his soda. “Just a case of a missing pet, which I passed to Tanaka-chan, and a case of a missing child, which I passed to Harukawa-chan. Besides that, Kiiboy asked for help with a case of a cheating husband but I shooed him away. It’s fine.”

Momota grunted softly, then ran his fingers through his hair. “You gotta stop declining cases, man. Our bills will not pay themselves at the end of the month,” he said as he stretched, Ouma waved him a dismissing hand. “Anyway, you said you passed a case to Harumaki? Did she say something about the next few days?”

“Nuh-uh,” Ouma replied, twirling a strand of his hair absently between his fingers. “I like how your words imply that Harukawa-chan talks to me for things other than death threats. Why? Are you two gonna get married?”

“Wh- No!” Momota shouted, making Ouma giggle at the exaggerated reaction. “It’s just- Boss told me we’ll have a new trainee these next few days and they’re looking for someone to take them under their wing. You know, just to make them more comfortable around the agency. Harumaki probably already knows who the trainee is and is looking for the person who will take care of them.”

“Is this why she was fumbling through your stuff this morning?”

“She- what?” Momota blinked in confusion, then blinked again when acknowledgement crossed his eyes. “Oh! Yeah, she told me she was looking for the notebook I keep everyone’s numbers on. Probably to make some calls about the trainee.”

“Man, I would _not_ be happy to receive a call from Harukawa-chan.”

“She wouldn’t even call you in the first place.”

“True.”

“It’s easier to just send you a threatening letter.”

“Also true.”

“Anyway, now you know what she was doing.” Momota ran his fingers through his hair again, sipping from his coffee while scrolling through YouTube for one of his stupid live videos of space. As if one of the videos were going to show him anything other than absolutely nothing. “I know you don’t like when people come here when one of us is not here.”

“Especially miss hitman.”

“She’s not a hitman, but especially Harumaki, yeah. I know.”

“Sure she isn’t,” Ouma scoffed, rolling his eyes. He leaned backwards in his chair again, picking up the phone when it rang and listening what the person on the other side had to say while doodling on his notebook –once the call was over, he quickly and shortly spoke through the intercom with one of the other people who worked at the agency and passed them the case (Hinata Hajime, from the seventh division). Then, he yawned, rested his feet on his desk and reached for the remote control to turn on the TV for some background noise. Bored, he leaned back and looked upside down at Momota. “Momota-chan, tell me more about the trainee. It’s been a while since we last had new faces over here. It’s so boring.”

Momota finished his coffee before speaking, eyes focused on his computer as he scrolled through something. “I don’t know, man. Boss just told me we’re getting a new detective trainee and they’re looking for someone to take them under their wing for a while. The only thing I know is that it’s a man.”

“Oh? Now I’m interested,” Ouma said, eyes sparkling as he moved his chair around to face Momota correctly. “Tell me more.”

It took only one look at his face for Momota to flinch, hesitating. “Oh no,” he said, looking at Ouma through his eyelashes, sighing tiredly. “Oh, no. I know that face. You’re gonna terrorize the trainee like you did with poor Kiibo.”

Ouma giggled, pulling one of his legs up to hug them against his chest and tilting his head slightly to the side. “Me? Why would I? I never did anything wrong, ever, in my life, Momota-chan.”

Momota grumbled, looking away from Ouma to his computer again. “Fuck, I hope the trainee is specializing in forensic science so he doesn’t have to endure your annoying ass like I do.”

“Forensic chemistry is Miu-chan’s division,” Ouma said, smirking. Momota instantly froze and widened his eyes. “Do you seriously want the poor guy to be around her like Kiiboy did?”

“Fuck, no,” Momota breathed. “It’s gonna traumatize him. I honestly don’t know how Fujisaki is not traumatized yet.”

“Maybe they're secretly a kinky perverted too,” Ouma shrugged, turning his chair back to his desk and reaching for a candy in one of the drawers. He opened the package and threw a strawberry pencil in Momota's direction, scoffing softly when the sweet flatly hit his forehead before falling to his desk. 

_“Fujisaki?_ Doubt it,” Momota replied, picking the sweet from his desk and taking a bite. “You think Iruma would’ve been quiet if they were? No.”

“That’s a good point,” Ouma hummed with a mouthful of strawberry pencils, absently changing the channels on their small office TV. “They’re probably sending the newbie to Celeste-neechan, though. She’s surprisingly good with the newbies.”

“Oh, she would _kill_ you if she heard you calling her that,” Momota scoffed. “But you’re right, for some reason. Impressive.”

“I am always right, Momota-chan.”

“Yeah, sure,” he scoffed again, rolling his eyes, then shot a look towards their TV and raised his eyebrows. “Shit, check it out. Turn it up.”

Ouma finished munching the candy in his mouth before biting into another one, leaving it hanging from his mouth as he reached for the remote to turn up the TV, looking at what Momota wanted him to see.

The TV was on the news channel, the cameraman filming a tall person with long navy blue hair standing on the edge of a building, one arm hooked around the rope ladder of the helicopter hovering about them and the other holding a huge hat in its place to keep it from flying away with the wind. The person had a mask covering half of their face, but their bright, snarky smile was still visible even from a long distance. Tied around their waist, there was an apparent heavy bag, probably full of valuable articles.

Ouma didn’t bat an eye at the sight.

He scoffed at the news headline, the words “BREAKING NEWS: THE PHANTOM THIEF ‘MORIARTY’ STRIKES AGAIN” flashing on the screen.

“You know, if the police stopped being big-ass cowards and handed us the case, we would’ve caught this guy long ago,” was what he said, gaining an affirmative hum from his partner.

The Phantom Thief, also known as his alias ‘Moriarty’, was someone who had been around for quite a while now. As far as Ouma could remember, he’d been around for around a year or so, striking randomly (random times, random places) so the police couldn’t predict his moves and track him down. He was extremely intelligent, and all the things the police knew about him were provided by the thief himself. He was known all around the country for robbing high-society banks, dishonest politicians and corrupted people in general, like owners of illegal art galleries and museums. Ouma had always thought that ‘Robin Hood’ was a better, more fitting pseudonym for him, since he never targeted people that did not have good wealth.

(But again, Professor Moriarty from the Sherlock Holmes stories was also someone who was extremely intelligent, so the alias also kind-of-fitted the thief too. The only thing that differed thief Moriarty from the original Moriarty was, maybe, the fact that Professor Moriarty did not participate directly in the activities he planned, but only orchestrated the events, while thief Moriarty liked the spotlight.)

“Dude, why does he dress up like that?” Momota said from his desk behind Ouma’s, ripping Ouma away from his drifting thoughts. “The cloak and the hat and the tall boots full of buckles. It’s so ugly.”

Turning his chair to shoot Momota an unimpressed look, Ouma flatly replied: “Those are some bold words for someone who wears crocs unironically.”

Momota gasped, offended, extending his long legs beneath his desk so said crocs were now visible from Ouma’s desk. “They’re not- they’re not crocs!”

“They are,” Ouma insisted, face as impassive and bored as before. “Very ugly ones too.”

“They’re not-! Okay but _in my defense,_ they’re really comfortable!” Momota slammed his palms on his desk. “C’mon, a man cannot have comfort around here?! Also, they were a present from my grandma!”

“Sure, Momota-chan,” Ouma murmured, rolling his eyes at Momota before returning his attention to the TV –Moriarty had climbed the rope ladders and got into the helicopter hovering the tall building by now, waving lazily at the citizen in the streets while the cameraman filming the whole thing struggled to film him from that distance, the footage shaky and unsteady. They kept filming the helicopter until it vanished from sight among the tall skyscrapers downtown, police cars chasing it in vain. “...And he wins again,” Ouma said once the footage was cut, sighing. He closed his eyes and pressed the bridge of his nose. “This is getting ridiculous.”

Momota grunted in agreement, his old chair creaked when he leaned backwards to stare at the ceiling. There was a knock on the open door, Ouma opened an eye to look at their visitor. Harukawa. “Seriously, how the fuck haven’t the police caught this dude yet? A helicopter! Seriously! How?!”

Harukawa cleared her throat softly. “Momota,” she said, standing in the door frame with a couple of files in her hands, then eyed Ouma sideways and rolled her eyes quietly when he waved lazily at her. “And Ouma,” she added. “Boss would like to see you. _Both_ of you.”

“Oh, shit,” Momota gasped, choking with his saliva and coughing a couple of times. Harukawa stared at him apprehensively, crossing the distance between them to tap his back softly. It was Ouma’s turn to roll his eyes. “Okay, I’m fine,” Momota said once he recovered his breath, inhaling deeply once or twice. _“Fuck,_ which one of them?”

“Kirigiri-san.” 

_“Kirigiri-san?!”_ Momota screeched, hysterically, then turned his chair towards Ouma and pointed an accusatory finger at him. _“You!_ What did you _do?!”_

Ouma gave him his best unimpressed look. “Amazingly, nothing.”

“That’s _precisely_ the problem!” Momota grunted, pressing the balls of his hands against his eyes. “You kept declining cases, and now we’re both getting fired!”

“Well it’s not my fault they’re all so boring! I’m an illustrious detective! I don’t wanna help people find their missing pomeranian!”

“Shut up, both of you,” Harukawa sighed, pressing the bridge of his nose. “I am almost a hundred percent sure that you’re not getting fired, so calm down.”

Ouma closed his mouth with a loud sound, gritting his teeth as he did so. He crossed his arms over his chest and humphed, pouting at Momota. Momota pouted back. Harukawa sighed again.

“Good lord,” she said, more to himself than to them, rubbing her eyes. “I’m dealing with preschoolers.”

Ouma giggled, leaning backwards on his chair. “Well you _did_ say you used to deal with kids before you became a hitman, didn’t you, Harukawa-chan?”

“She’s not a hitman.”

“I’m not a hitman, but yes, I did,” she murmured and then left Momota’s side, walking silently towards the door, the muffled sound of her boots hitting the tile floor echoing around the room. “Now if you _please,_ follow me.”

Momota grumbled something under his breath, probably cursing Ouma again before standing up and reluctantly following Harukawa to outside their office, but not before finger-flickering hard on the back of his head. Ouma whimpered, crocodile tears already forming in his eyes as he followed Momota with sloppy steps, clinging to the loose sleeve of his coat and crying about how mean his partner was. Momota ignored him, being already used to his antics since they became partners, around five years ago.

Despite working in that building for more than five years, Ouma has always been amazed by the grandeur of the place. It had over thirty floors, although he never got past the twenty second, and they were all separated in different divisions; Momota, himself, Oowada, Ishimaru, Sonia and quite a few others were part of the sixth division, the one that dealt with Criminal Investigation. Harukawa worked in the twelfth division with Celestia, Shinguji and Kamukura, although they often provided help to other divisions because they worked mainly as snipers and were not always needed. 

Kirigiri, Naegi and Togami were the heads of the second division, and their bosses.

(Technically, _Munakata, Sakakura and Yukizome_ were their bosses, their _actual_ bosses, the leaders of the detective agency and heads of the first division, but to Ouma they were like an urban legend –in all these years working for the Future Foundation, he must’ve crossed their ways once or twice, and not even long enough to actually talk to them.

He still managed to get himself almost beaten to death by Sakakura in one of these encounters, however. He considered this his personal record of How Fast Can I Piss Someone Off. Second place was even between Momota and Harukawa, naturally.)

As Harukawa hit the twelve-eighth floor button towards Kirigiri’s office, Ouma couldn’t help but cheer internally in pure glee. He always wanted to see Kirigiri’s office, although the circumstances may not be good. Her office was one of the few offices he had not broken in yet.

After an excruciatingly long ride and a terrible elevator song being sung out loud by Momota’s terrible voice, the elevator stopped on the twelve-eighth floor with a sharp ting. Harukawa was the first to walk out, her eyes closed and brows drawn together as she walked away from Momota as fast as she could while Momota followed after her like a puppy. Ouma laughed at the scene, then shot a look around the floor.

All in all, it was pretty much like his own floor –long corridors with shiny dark tiles and thick stone pillars every ten yards or so, multiple doors opened and closed and a few people here and there. Two restrooms to the left, a small recreation room to the right. Pale, blue fluorescent lights enlightened the long corridors along with the large windows. Ahead, by the end of the hall, a closed door with a metal name plate right in the middle of it.

“Shit,” Momota whimpered as they approached the door. “Shit, shit, shit. We’re _so_ getting fired.”

“Nah, they’re totally giving us a promotion because you’re the best detective around here.”

Momota’s gullible face instantly lighted up. “You really think so?”

“Of _course_ not. You suck.”

Momota cursed and grunted. “If I suck then you must swallow.”

“Momota-chan, you have no idea~”

“Alright, we’re here,” Harukawa interrupted their petty argument once they reached their bosses’ office door. Then, holding the doorknob, she shot them a look from over her shoulders. _“Behave.”_

“Yes ma’am.”

_“Yes mommy~~”_

Harukawa glared daggers at him for a brief moment, then sighed and knocked on the door. “It’s me, Kirigiri-san.”

_“Yes, come in.”_

She nodded to herself, shot both him and Momota another _‘behave’_ look from over her shoulders and opened the door, giving them space to walk in. Stepping in, Ouma took his time to look around the room.

It was extensive and ample, way bigger than the tiny office he’d been sharing with Momota since they became partners. On the farthest wall, facing the door, a large floor-to-ceiling window with open blinds, showing a beautiful view of the bright blue skies, all the surrounding skyscrapers and a privileged view of the Cosmo Clock 21 Ferris Wheel. Above them, hanging on the ceiling, an enormous crystal chandelier probably expensive enough to pay Ouma’s salary for the rest of his life. There were three different desks, all way bigger and fancier than the ones in Momota’s and his office, and a huge bookshelf going from wall to wall filled with countless books written in several languages.

On the desk facing the door, sat an elegant woman dressed in black and white, her pale lilac hair neatly combed behind her back. Their boss, Kirigiri Kyoko.

She didn’t look up from the files she was checking when Harukawa gave them space to walk into the office and then closed the door behind them, just continued to flip through the pages in silence as she waited for them to approach her. Through his peripheral vision, Ouma could see Momota shaking –so he quietly reached for his right arm and squeezed his muscles softly before stepping further into the office and walking over to Kirigiri's desk in front of Momota.

Kirigiri only looked up from her files when Ouma stopped right in front of her desk, greeting her with a quiet bow that she accepted with a soft nod of her head in return. Momota was by his side in a second, also greeting her with a bow that was slightly more stiff and shaky than Ouma’s. She smiled and nodded at him as well.

“There’s no need to be nervous, Momota-san,” she said with a soft snort, making Momota wheeze quietly next to Ouma. “I can guarantee that the reason I called you two here is not a bad one. Please, take a seat.”

Momota sighed audibly in relief, taking a soft snort from Ouma as they both sat down in the chairs in front of Kirigiri’s desk. He then shot him a look sideways that could only mean ‘you’re on thin ice, Ouma’. Ouma giggled again.

Kirigiri adjusted the files on her hands, the papers making a muted sound as they hit the desk. She cleared her throat softly. “So, you two have been working for our agency for six and a half years, am I correct?” They both nodded, Kirigiri nodded as well. “You two have quite a reputation around here. Makoto often compliments your partnership and is quite proud to have two detectives with such an extensive list of successful missions on their register such as you two working for us. And although Byakuya would never say it, I am sure he thinks the same,” she then smiled at them, and Ouma had to keep himself from blinking and raising his eyebrows in surprise; _Togami Byakuya_ was proud of them? _The_ Togami Byakuya? “That being said, I have a special mission for you.”

Momota instantly nodded feverishly, eyes widened in expectation and excitement. Ouma just waited for Kirigiri to keep talking.

She inhaled deeply, reached for her water bottle and took a sip, then proceeded: “The phantom thief,” she said. “He’s been around for a year or so, yes? And the police aren’t even close to catching him yet. He’s intelligent and talented and _extremely_ dangerous, which is why the police were reluctant to hand the case over to us and wanted to catch him themselves.”

Ouma nodded, more to himself than to Kirigiri, seeing why the police would act like that regarding Moriarty. Again, he was someone who was known for being intelligent, and along this entire year he’s been around no one ever managed to catch his face or anything that could reveal his identity on camera. It was frustrating, really was.

(Which is why Ouma had always found himself sort of interested in the guy and his modus operandi. Anyone who could fool the police for _that_ long without making a mistake was someone worth of interest.)

“But?” Ouma said when Kirigiri stopped talking again, gaining a confused look from Momota. “There’s more to it, isn’t it? It’s why you called us here.”

Kirigiri smiled softly, just a quiet pull of the corner of her lips. “There is,” she nodded. “Momota-san, Ouma-san, you two are two of the best detectives we have in the agency today. You have countless successful missions in your records, a good reputation and gained a great amount of respect in all these years. Without you, we wouldn’t have stopped The Tragedy and captured the Remnants of Despair, among many other achievements. Which brings us to the main point.”

Ouma widened his eyes and held his breath in expectation. Momota started moving his legs continuously up and down beneath the desk. Kirigiri took a deep breath and smiled softly again.

“After the events of today, the police finally gave in and handed us the phantom thief case,” she said, placing the files she was holding on the desk and pushing it towards Ouma and Momota before lacing her gloved fingers together in front of her smile. “And I would like you two to have it.”

For a moment, there was silence. Then, the unmistakable sound of someone choking with their saliva.

“ _Y.. es..!_ Yes! _Yes!”_ Momota stammered after a while, coughing, jumping in his seat in excitement. “Y-you won’t be disappointed, madam!”

“You could never disappoint me, Momota-san,” Kirigiri smiled again, snorting softly at Momota’s excitement. Ouma still had his eyes widened in shock as he reached for the files on Kirigiri’s desk and peaked inside, still struck dumbfounded by the sudden turn of events –half an hour earlier, he was talking with Momota about how they would've caught the thief by now if the police handed over the case, and now they _had_ the case.

What a beautiful strike of good luck. Komaeda-chan the Janitor would be so happy.

“We’ll catch him in no time!”

“I’m sure you will. I trust you,” she snorted and smiled quietly again, then lowered her hands to her desk. She cleared her throat softly, her expression becoming more serious. “But please, do know that this case is confidential for now, yes?”

“Of course,” both Momota and Ouma replied at the same time, the brown envelope containing the details for Moriarty’s case firmly pressed against Ouma’s chest.

The smile returned to Kirigiri’s lips. “Very well. That’s it for now,” she said with a quiet nod. Both Ouma and Momota were back on their feet in a second. “I do expect a report as soon as you have new clues about the case. Please, do your very best to catch this criminal as soon as possible. Dismissed.”

“Thank you, madam. We’ll do our best,” Momota said with a very deep bow, the back of his coat almost floating over his head as he did so. Ouma also bowed respectfully, although with a little less enthusiasm than Momota, then they both turned on their heels and walked towards the door.

When Momota touched the door knob to open the door, came Kirigiri’s voice from behind again. “Ah, before I forget,” she said. Both of them turned to look at her. She smiled openly, and it sent shivers down Ouma’s spine. “I am also assigning you the new detective trainee, so do your best.”

Ouma closed his eyes and bit his lips to hold up a groan. Momota, in his turn, did not hold it at all.

He really shouldn’t have commemorated the strike of good luck so soon.

Once again, Komaeda-chan the Janitor returned to his mind.  
  


* * *

  
After leaving Kirigiri’s office, Momota and Ouma decided to go out for lunch before returning to their office.

They ate at one of the restaurants in the food court of the building (that took the entire fifteenth floor), a small family restaurant called “Hanamura Diner” that served homemade and traditional food. The food was well known among all the employees of the agency for its exceptional quality, and the restaurant was always full exactly because of that, but as Ouma and Momota were friends with Iruma Miu and Iruma Miu was really good friends with their chef, they had both a discount on most of the menu and their orders were always placed before the others. 

Heh. Maybe being friends with Iruma Miu had its perks, after all.

After eating their lunch and killing some time with Hanamura (and Kamukura, Shinguji and Oogami, too, although these three were silent most of the time while the other three did most of the talking), they returned to their office for the afternoon shift, finding Harukawa waiting silently by their door. She sighed in relief as soon as she saw them, making Ouma giggle as he unlocked the door to their office.

 _“Finally,”_ she said as Ouma unlocked the door and both him and Momota stepped inside, but she remained outside, reaching for her phone on her coat pocket and rapidly tapping on the screen. “Where were you?”

Ouma pointed at the clock above his desk as he sat down and stretched on his chair. “Lunchtime, Harukawa-chan. I’m pretty sure even killing machines like you know what those are.”

Harukawa briefly looked up from her phone and glanced towards the clock, then raised her eyebrows promptly ignoring the last part. “Your ‘lunchtime’ lasted for almost _three hours.”_

Momota cursed. “Shit, really? It’s _your_ fault, Ouma!”

“Wha- _My_ fault?! It was _you_ who kept discussing your plans for your spring wedding with Harukawa-chan! I had to furiously make out with Kamukura-chan to keep my mind off your hetero babbling!” He whined loudly, allowing the crocodile tears to run down his face dramatically and smear his eyeliner. “You’re so mean, Momota-chan!”

“Oh dear, you dragged _Kamukura_ to your lying bullshit? They’re gonna _kill_ you.” Harukawa said, pressing the bridge of her nose. Although she ignored the ‘wedding’ part, Ouma could see the faint pink blush on her cheeks.

“I’m not lying! I never lie! Kamukura-chan and I are dating and in love!” Ouma whined again, moving his arms up and down like a spoiled child, tears running down his face like a waterfall. Then, just as quickly as the tears came, they vanished, and a naughty smile formed on his lips. He brought his index finger to his mouth in his usual I’m-Fucking-With-You way. “Or are we? You’ll never know.”

“Kamukura and I are literally partners,” Harukawa said, unimpressed. “I literally just have to ask them, but I know you’re lying,” she then sighed and checked on her phone, then looked up when she heard the elevator’s ‘ting’. “Anyway, I’m sure you already talked to Kirigiri-san about this, but you’re taking the trainee under your wing,” she told them, then murmured at herself: “God, poor boy.”

“I think it’s a blessing to be around me, to be honest. Not sure about Momota-chan, though.”

“Yeah _fuck you_ too, Ouma!”

“Pass.”

 _“Anyway,”_ Harukawa said again, her voice a little louder than usual, dragging both Momota’s and Ouma’s attention back to her. 

Suddenly, it was as if Ouma was struck by lightning.

“Momota, Ouma,” said Harukawa, but Ouma could only stare wide-eyed at the man now standing next to her. “This is the new detective trainee you’ll be looking over for now on. And Saihara, this is Momota and that one over there is Ouma. They’re the ones who will be assisting you for now on.”

On his cue, the newbie stepped over and waved sheepishly. “U-um, hi. I’m Saihara Shuichi. T-thanks for having me.”

“Shit, fuck,” Ouma wheezed, all wide-eyes and heavy breathing. “Momota-chan, Momota-chan, am I dead? Did I die?”

Momota squinted his eyes and frowned, looking away from the newbie to Ouma. “What the fuck? No?”

Ouma then smirked, all the traces of panic suddenly vanishing, leaning on his desk with one elbow resting over it. “Then why am I seeing an angel?”

Momota instantly choked on his saliva and started coughing, while Harukawa gripped the pencil on her hands so strongly that it broke in half, but Ouma only focused on the newbie’s reaction.

Unlike he imagined the newbie would be, Saihara Shuichi was not a teenage boy, no. He was a man around Ouma’s and Momota’s age, with noticeably pale skin and dark bags under his eyes, tall and slender, but not as tall as Momota. He had dark teal hair, straight, with the tips framing his face and almost touching his shoulders, and the tips of his fringe going just past his nose. His eyes were of a muted golden-grayish color with notably long lashes, although his eyes were almost hidden behind his glasses and fringe because he was looking towards the floor, and he was holding a small notebook in his hands almost completely covered by the long sleeves of his dark gray sweater. Overall, he was really pretty, despite being obviously anxious and timid.

Maybe it _was_ a good thing that the newbie was sent to them, after all. Shout-out to Komaeda-chan the Janitor with his weird good luck and bad luck again.

Saihara widened his eyes and gasped softly when he realized the pick-up line was directed to him, his pale cheeks acquiring a soft tone of pink as started at the floor and scratched his left leg with his right foot and gripped his small notebook with both hands.

 _“Ten seconds,_ Ouma,” Momota hissed as soon as he recovered himself from choking with his own saliva, pointing an accusative pen at Ouma. “You’ve known him for _ten seconds_ and you’re already making him uncomfortable.”

Ouma closed his eyes and smirked proudly. “What can I say? I’m amazing.”

“You’re an asshole,” then, at the newbie: “I’m sorry, please, just ignore him. He’s an asshole.”

“I-it’s fine,” Saihara said in a whisper, then cleared his throat softly when the words came out in a stutter. Then, he turned towards Ouma: “Um, _δύο μπορούν να παίξουν αυτό το παιχνίδι.”_

Without his smug smile faltering, Ouma replied: “I don’t speak Spanish, Saihara-chan.”

“That’s Greek.” Harukawa murmured.

“Oh, sorry,” Saihara apologized, scratching the back of his neck. “I thought, um- I-I thought I was talking to a Greek God.”

For a moment, there was an awkward silence. Then, Momota choked with his saliva again and coughed a couple of times before starting to laugh _hysterically._ Harukawa sighed, pressing the bridge of her nose with a disappointed expression on her face, and Ouma and Saihara just stared at each other in silence while Ouma assimilated that the newbie just _flirted back at him._

Slowly, a huge, amused smile formed on his lips.

“I think we’re gonna be really, really good friends, Saihara-chan.”

  
**-x-x-x-**

  
The rest of the afternoon was spent with introductions and a tour around the facility.

Saihara was, as Ouma already expected, really shy and socially awkward (despite the obvious flirting from earlier), but he learned things surprisingly fast. He was really curious too, and often made notes in his small notebook as Ouma and Momota explained certain things to him –working hours (or part-time for him, since he was only a trainee), lunchtime, the general rules of the agency, the best restaurants to have lunch at, the current and very famous bet on how much longer would it take for Iruma to be put in jail for indecent behavior. The well-known theory that their bosses were secretly dating, and the theory that the thirteenth floor was haunted (reason why Momota simply refused to show the floor to Saihara). How people often mistook Harukawa and Kamukura for siblings because they were quite alike.

Introductions were… Something.

“Holy shit, you got your hands on a hottie newbie?” Said Iruma with a big smile when they visited her to introduce Saihara to her part of the facility, the Forensic Chemistry labs. “Oi, Fujisack. Check this out,” she then whistled as Saihara passed through her. “Damn, Soudick would like this one. He likes the emos.”

“Welcome to the Future Foundation, Saihara-kun!” Fujisaki said with a big warm smile from their seat behind a microscope, ignoring what Iruma had said, huge safety goggles resting on their head. “I hope we can get along!”

“Uh, yeah. Me too. Thank you,” Saihara replied. “It’s- it’s nice to meet you too.”

Iruma stopped by his side, giving him a measured look. “Are you single?”

Momota quickly moved on the way, pushing Saihara away from Iruma by the shoulders. “Okay, enough. Goodbye, Iruma. Goodbye Fujisaki.”

“I-I-I just made a question!”

Then, they moved to Tanaka’s office to introduce him.

“Stay back, fiend!” Said the man once they knocked on his door, holding a hamster on his bandaged hands. “I sense a dark aura around your corporeal form! My Four Dark Devas of Destruction are wary about you!”

Saihara subtly moved to sniff his armpits. Ouma giggled and Momota face-palmed.

“Welcome to the Future Foundation, Saihara-kun! I’m sure you’ll bring a lot of hope to the agency!” Said Komaeda the Janitor when they introduced Saihara to him.

“Oh my! It’s good to see new faces around. It gets quite boring after a while, does it not?” Celestia said with a soft smile in the middle of a game of Uno with a very distressed Mioda.

“...” Kamukura merely acknowledged Saihara’s presence with a quiet nod.

“For your own sake, do not listen to anything Ouma-kun has to say.” Kiibo.

“Do you read shoujo manga, Saihara-kun?” Shirogane and Yamada.

“Saihara-kun, there’s a fifty-three percent chance that you’ll become a criminal if you hang around Ouma.” Hagakure.

“I think Kokichi-chan is actually really funny! Kaito-chan too!” Mioda.

After a couple more introductions and people trashing Ouma, all the three of them called it a day and returned to office. Momota instantly fell in his chair with a loud sigh, reaching for his water bottle and taking a couple of deep gulps while Ouma stretched and laid down sprawled over his desk. Saihara sat down quietly in one of the few spare chairs of the office, writing things down in his notebook in silence.

“So, Saihara-chan,” Ouma called him after a moment, watching how the man jumped startled in his seat and briefly widened his eyes, as if he was not expecting to be talked to. “What do you think so far?”

“W-what?”

“The agency,” Ouma explained, rolling over his desk so he was staring at Saihara upside down, the tips of the ribbon tying half of his hair up almost touching the floor beneath the desk. “What do you think?”

“Ah,” Saihara said, then resumed writing in his notebook. “It’s cool. Bigger than my uncle’s.”

“Your uncle’s,” Ouma repeated, squinting his eyes at Saihara. He could almost hear the gears turning inside his head. “Saihara…” he murmured to himself with a frown, then blinked in surprise and gasped. “Saihara... Saiki. Your uncle is _Saihara Saiki?”_

“That’s his name, yes.”

“So _that’s_ why your name sounded familiar,” Momota joined the conversation, his feet resting over his desk and giving Ouma a clear view of his horrid galaxy-themed crocs. “Saihara Saiki used to work here, but he left the agency to build his _own_ agency long before Ouma and I started working here. He worked in the tenth division, if I’m not mistaken. I think Hagakure met him.”

“Why did you decide to come here instead of going to your uncle’s agency?”

Saihara rubbed his chin with his thumb and index finger like Momota used to do, although he did not have an ugly goatee like Momota did. “I think part of it is exactly because of that: because he’s my uncle. I used to assist him with some cases when I was younger, but it never felt really serious because he didn’t treat me as one of his subordinates, but as his nephew.”

Ouma hummed in agreement. “Ah, I see,” he nodded, then wheezed in surprise when a package of grape-flavored gummies suddenly landed on his face. He took the package away from his face and blinked towards Momota, who was eating from a bag of chips; when he saw him staring, Momota gave him his middle finger. Ouma stuck his tongue out in return. Saihara snorted quietly. Ouma opened the package and picked a gummy, chewing it silently while still staring upside down at Saihara. “What’s the other part of it?”

Saihara pondered for a moment, biting a piece of his chocolate bar –it seemed like Momota did not know what to give him, so he just gave him chocolate. “The Future Foundation is a famous, prestigious detective agency,” was what he replied after a moment. “Every wannabe detective wants an internship here, myself included. Except I’m not exactly a wannabe anymore, I suppose.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah,” Saihara pushed his glasses back with a faint, proud smile forming on his lips. “I’m actually in the last semester of the criminology university. So I’m technically a detective already.”

Momota hummed. “That’s a good thing,” he said with his mouth full of chips. Ouma twisted his nose at him in disgust. “If you do well on your internship, maybe you won’t even have to look for a job after you graduate.”

“That’s the goal,” Saihara nodded. “It’s already a good thing that I got the internship.”

“You better not do any oopsies then, Saihara-chan,” Ouma smirked, rolling around on his desk until he was on his side and propped up on one elbow, his index finger placed in front of his lips in a mischievous way. “You wouldn’t want to meet the forbidden basement for naughty detectives. Trust me, I’ve been there. It’s really, _really_ bad~”

“The-” Saihara blinked, widening his eyes. “The _what?”_

“Just ignore him, man,” Momota sighed. “He’s a pest. Trust me, I’ve been keeping up with his bullshit for almost six years now. He’s trying to scare you.”

“You wish, Momota-chan. You wish you were me.”

“What, short and stinky?”

“I’m not- At least I don’t wear crocs!”

“I _told_ you, they’re not crocs!”

Saihara blinked again, slightly taken aback by the sudden quarrel. “Um, aren’t you two partners?”

 _“Unfortunately,”_ both Ouma and Momota replied at the same time. Then, Ouma smiled openly. “But maybe you’re here to finally change things! Maybe you’re my saving grace, Saihara-chan! Maybe you truly are an angel!”

_“E-eh?!”_

Momota grunted, throwing a small eraser at Ouma. It fell flatly on the floor behind his desk. _“No flirting with the newbie!_ Stop making him uncomfortable!”

Ouma giggled. “Aw.”

“It’s- it’s fine, uh, Momota-san?” Saihara tried, squinting his eyes at Momota and then nodding when Momota nodded. “It’s fine. I don’t- I don’t mind.”

“Oh no,” Momota said. “Oh, no. Don’t say that. You’re gonna encourage him.”

“Are you jealous?” Ouma giggled again, wearing one of his shit-eating grins on his lips. Then, he sat down on his desk and crossed one leg over the other, leaning on his right arm and picking up gummies from the package sitting by his side with the other. “Anyway, Saihara-chan. Unfortunately we do not have any interesting cases in our hands at the moment for you to show us your certainly amazing detective skills, but we’ll see how the next few days will unravel.”

Through his peripheral vision, Ouma saw Momota frowning. “We don’t have any-”

 _“We don’t,_ Momota-chan,” Ouma firmly said, giving Momota a firm look as he did so, hoping he would get the meaning behind his words. _Confidential._

“Ah,” Momota said, apparently understanding what Ouma meant. He nodded. “Right, we don’t. Sorry, man. It seems like you’ll only see us bickering for now.”

If Saihara noticed the terrible lie, he didn’t say anything. “I don’t really mind waiting for a few days, to be honest,” was what he said instead, snorting softly. “I think getting a big case right off the bat would seriously freak me out.”

“Happens to the best of us.” Ouma scoffed, then smiled smugly. “Not to me, of course. Because I’m perfect."

“Talk about a superiority complex…” Momota murmured against his water bottle spout. Saihara giggled, doodling absently in his notebook as he bit pieces of his already half-eaten chocolate bar. It seemed that he had a sweet tooth, or just liked chocolate.

The rest of Saihara’s part-time internship was spent with easy giggles and jokes thrown around the three of them (mostly Ouma and Momota bickering and Saihara just giggling at them, honestly), until the day was finally over for him and he had to go home. Momota and Ouma both escorted him to the door when he left, making more small talk before Saihara finally stepped into the elevator and waved them goodbye as the doors closed upon him.

Momota and Ouma waited for a moment, until the elevator hit the first floor, then returned to the office with hurried steps.

As Momota locked the office door, he pointed with his chin towards his desk. “Last drawer, the file at the very bottom.”

Ouma nodded, already walking to the desk and opening the right drawer. He fumbled through the messy files for a moment before finding the correct one, a brown envelope with nothing but ‘confidential’ written in menacingly red letters.

“Talk about drama,” he murmured as he moved to sit on Momota’s chair, opening the envelope and picking up the papers inside of it before spreading them over the desk for both of them to take a look.

It was, as both of them already expected, not a large file. It contained only three papers, one listing Moriarty’s features and two listing his crimes in very small letters, and a couple of blurry photos that hardly showed something useful. Momota cursed under his breath, Ouma sighed and ran his fingers through his hair.

Of course there was hardly something to work on.

But, honestly, was it not the reason why Ouma had become a detective in the first place?

He liked the challenge. He liked the riddles, and he liked the mystery, and he liked the feeling of having things under control. Ouma Kokichi was someone who hated boredom over anything else in the world, so he yearned for the fire. For the chase. For the addicting feeling of having knowledge of most things, but still not knowing what would happen next.

He yearned for the phantom thief Moriarty and his cunning intellect, because he might be the only person in this boring world capable of outsmarting Ouma Kokichi himself.

And Ouma Kokichi could barely wait to catch him and watch him fall.  
  


* * *

**  
BREAKING NEWS: THE PHANTOM THIEF MORIARTY STRIKES AGAIN!**

**URGENT: YAMAHA FAMILY TARGETED BY THE PHANTOM THIEF.**

**THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS WORTH OF JEWELRY STOLEN.**

**PHANTOM THIEF TERRORIZES YOKOHAMA.**

**STEAL HIS LOOK: MORIARTY, THE PHANTOM THIEF.**

**BAD IS THE NEW SEXY.  
  
**

* * *

  
The next few days passed by quite slowly, without much happening.

Saihara came to the agency three times a week, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and passed by on a Saturday afternoon to say hello. Although shy and reserved, he was pretty good at what he did; he usually got the tasks Momota and Ouma gave him done in an hour or two, even the tasks where he needed to talk to other people around the agency. Harukawa helped him with certain things if she was around, and so did Momota and Ouma, but most of the time Saihara worked just fine on his own –except, of course, for the usual mistakes the newbies always made.

For Ouma, it was quite amusing seeing the detective trainee working.

They were told to keep an eye on the newbie and help him get used to the agency, so keeping an eye on the newbie was what Ouma was doing. It was always amusing to see the newbies working (he and Momota were assigned Kiibo when he joined the agency, so he had quite the experience with them), because they always wanted to give everything they got to impress their superiors, even in the most silly of the tasks such as taking the trash out, changing the water gallon and cleaning the office after the business hour was over. Saihara was no different –at the end of his third day at work, Ouma had counted Saihara organizing the books on the bookshelves at the back of the office around three times; in alphabetical order, then size and then colors. Ouma figured he was bored, since there wasn’t much they could do without a case in their hands, but unfortunately there wasn’t much he could do to ease that.

It was complicated, seeing Saihara bored because they did not have a case when they actually _did_ have one, but couldn’t use the newbie’s help with it because it was confidential. It was a shame, too, because Ouma _really_ wanted to see Saihara’s detective skills –his uncle _was_ a famous detective, after all. Saihara _had_ to have something up those long sleeves of his sweater. He wouldn’t have gotten an internship at the _Future Foundation_ if he didn’t.

For now, Saihara would have to be satisfied with the simple case of a famous CEO apparently involved in money laundering that Momota handed him when he started feeling sorry for the newbie doing nothing but arranging the books on their bookshelves. On a normal day, Ouma would have declined the case –it was only a seven out of ten, and Ouma did not accept cases that were not at least an eight (kind of an asshole move, yes, but he had a _reputation_ to keep.)

While Momota and Saihara studied the clues for the CEO’s case at Momota’s desk, Ouma secretly reread for the nth time the Moriarty file, trying to see if he could detect any clues he missed at any of the other times he studied the file, almost as if he was expecting the file to morph and a new clue to suddenly materialize before his eyes.

NAME: Unknown.  
ALIAS: The Phantom Thief, Moriarty.  
AGE: Unknown.  
HEIGHT: Unknown.  
DATE OF BIRTH: Unknown.  
APPEARANCE: Unknown.

The phantom thief, also known by the alias ‘Moriarty’, appeared for the first time around April 10th, 2017 (April tenth, two thousand seventeen) in the capital city of Kanagawa prefecture, Yokohama, Japan, during a gala at the Iwasaki mansion. A diamond worth an estimated $ 25,000 (twenty-five thousand dollars) was stolen and never retrieved.

Two days later, on April 12th, 2017 (April twelfth, two thousand seventeen), another theft being registered as done by Moriarty happened in the capital city of Kanagawa prefecture, Yokohama, Japan, again. A lost painting from the famous author Dazai Osamu worth an estimated $ 60,000 (sixty thousand dollars) was stolen from a gallery exhibition before the opening day. It was never retrieved.

Three days later, on April 15th, 2017 (April fifteenth, two thousand seventeen), Moriarty invaded the Yokohama Museum of Art, situated on Yokohama, Japan, during the night and stole the only known copy of a book called “The Necronomicon” worth an estimated $ 170,000 (one hundred and seventy thousand dollars). The book was never retrieved.

Five days later, on April 20th, 2017 (April twenty, two thousand seventeen), the phantom thief broke into the Yokohama Museum of Art, situated on Yokohama, Japan, a second time and stole an ancient sword fully made of gold from Taisho Era worth an estimated $1,500,000 (one million and five hundred thousand dollars). The sword was retrieved seven days later, returned to the Museum by the thief himself. No fingerprints were found.   
  


The list went on and on and on, listing each and every single one of Moriarty’s robberies with limited but enough information to work on and make theories. The timestamp between the attacks, Ouma only half-noticed, increased more and more with each robbery to the point a robbery wasn't reported for an entire month before suddenly returning to three robberies per week. He absently bit the tip of his right thumb as he stared at the file, eyes unfocused as he repeated the reports over and over and over again inside his mind, trying to see if he could find a pattern, or a clue, or anything at all. A diamond stolen, then a lost painting, a book, a sword made of gold, a necklace, rubies and emeralds, a vase.

The timestamps…

Something about the timestamps bugged him.

Removing his feet from over his desk, he hummed to himself as he went over the files again. April 10th, then April 12th, April 15th, April 20th, April 27th… What was so special about April two thousand seventeen...? _No._ No, that was not it.

He checked the dates again. April 10, April 12th, April 15th, April 20th, April 27th, May 8th, May 24th, June-

Now hold on a minute.

He frowned and checked over the numbers again. Then, he checked it once more, just to be sure, and promptly gasped.

There was no mistake.

“Holy shit,” he whispered, breathless. He hurriedly fumbled around his desk for a pencil and his notebook before quickly opening it and scribbling a couple of things down in a messy, hasty handwriting. Once he was done, he compared his notes with the reports on Moriarty’s file. He wheezed when he saw that they matched. “Holy _shit.”_

How did the police never _notice it?!_

His hurry called Momota’s attention. “What’s going on?” He asked, approaching him with Saihara in his track.

“Momota-chan, hand me a calendar.”

“What?”

Ouma hissed. _“Kaito,_ hand me a _fucking_ calendar!”

Momota yelped, startled both by the sudden use of his given name and the enraged curse. “Woah, okay!” He said, unlocking his phone and opening the calendar app. He handed the phone to Ouma. “Here.”

“Thanks for finally doing something useful,” Ouma said with an obvious fake smile, taking the phone from Momota’s hands and counting down something in silence. “What day is today?”

“Uh,” Saihara blinked, then checked his own phone. “September 21th.”

“Thanks, Saihara-chan. You are a blessing to this world,” he smiled at Saihara, and this time it was a real smile. Momota grumbled and complained about how it wasn’t fair that Saihara received special treatment when _he_ was the one who’s been his partner for almost six years now. Ouma ignored him, counted something down under his breath then nodded to himself. “That’s it,” he said in a whisper, then opened a big smile and held his head with both hands. “Holy shit, I _got_ it!”

“Um, got what?”

“His code, Saihara-chan!” Ouma replied, reaching out and grabbing both Saihara’s upper arms. “I got it!”

“Care to enlighten us then, oh great possessor of unbalanced knowledge?” Momota deadpanned, getting in the way and forcing Ouma to let go of Saihara’s arms. “What happened, Ouma? What did you get?”

Upon hearing this question, Ouma’s excitement died down a bit, because he was reminded that this case was supposed to be confidential and Saihara’s curious eyes were staring directly into his soul. He shot the apprentice a look, then looked towards Momota with a silent question in his eyes, hoping Momota would understand what his hesitation meant, and looked back at Saihara with a smile when Momota just quietly shrugged.

Ouma sat back down in his chair and signed for Momota and Saihara to come closer. Momota sat at his desk while Saihara dragged Momota’s office chair to sit. Ouma cleared his throat. “So I was bored because the two of you suddenly decided that you’re best friends and I was thrown into a corner, so I decided to go over Moriarty’s case again just to see if I could unlock some secret route that would take me directly to the final boss’ lair,” upon hearing Moriarty’s name, Ouma caught a glimpse of something sparkling in Saihara’s eyes. Saihara adjusted his posture in Momota’s desk and leaned forward, interested. “And guess what! I did it! I finally know his identity!”

Momota frowned, then raised an eyebrow, then widened his eyes. Saihara blinked in surprise.

_“You do?!”_

Ouma waved at them in a dismissing way. “Nope, that’s a lie,” he giggled when Momota grumbled dramatically and Saihara seemed to deflate. “But I did figure something out!”

“Well, don’t keep it to yourself then,” Momota sighed, disappointed, pressing the bridge of his nose.

“Well of course, Momota-chan! I would never keep you from my marvelous deductions!” He replied with a big smile, but Momota only gave him a look because he knew pretty damn well that Ouma _would,_ in fact, _keep things_ from him. Ouma picked up his notebook and drew some circles in purple ink around certain numbers he had written. “These,” he said as he circled the numbers. “Are the dates Moriarty striked,” he then left the notebook open at his desk for Momota and Saihara to take a look once he finished. He leaned back in his chair, a smug smile forming on his lips. “Tell me what you see.”

“A bunch of numbers,” Momota said, unimpressed. “They’re on the files. I already knew these numbers.”

Ouma looked at Momota with an expression that was the perfect mix of ‘disappointed’ and ‘unimpressed’. “Momota-chan, c’mon. I know you’re dumb, but you can’t be _that_ dumb.”

“What?” Momota grunted in disgruntlement, then picked up the notebook in pure rage and gave a closer look at the numbers. “10, 12, 15, 20, 27… These are the dates Moriarty striked. Why?”

“And…?” Ouma encouraged him, raising his eyebrows.

 _“And…_ They’re totally random! It’s why the police weren't able to catch him until now!” Momota threw his arms up dramatically. “C'mon, Ouma! Stop trying to make me guess and just tell me what you got!”

“Oh my God, how are you a _detective?”_ Ouma sighed and grumbled in disappointment, pressing the bridge of his nose. Then, he angrily pointed at the numbers. “I’m not talking about the dates itself, but the timestamp between them. Do you _see it?”_

Momota hummed, checking the notebook again. “Two days, three days, five days, seven days, eleven- _what?!”_

“Do you _see the sequence?”_

 _“Yes,”_ Momota blinked, surprised. _“Yes,_ I see it now. Holy shit, how did you _get that?”_

“Because the police are _imbeciles,_ it’s how I got it,” Ouma simply said. “I _told_ you we would’ve caught this dude by now if they had handed us the case long ago. But _no,_ they wanted to catch him by _themselves,_ because it was apparently _personal,”_ he mumbled, rolling his eyes in a mocking way. “Fucking idiots.”

“Um, aren’t we technically the police too?” Saihara innocently asked, lifting his right hand as if he was asking for permission to speak in a classroom. Momota and Ouma instantly shot him a look and he instantly fell silent, closing his mouth with a loud sound. “... Sorry.”

“We’re better than the police, Saihara-chan,” Ouma snorted, smirking smugly at the man. “It’s why we will catch him. We will catch Moriarty.”

“So the police handed over the Moriarty case?” Saihara asked, eyes sparkling with keen interest. “That is so cool! Do you have any clue as to what his identity might be yet?”

“Baby steps, Saihara-chan. Baby steps,” Ouma giggled, then retrieved his notebook and scribbled down a couple of more things. “Remind me again of when his last attack was.”

"September 12th, I think,” Momota replied with a shrug. “I don’t know, man. I don’t keep track of the days.”

“It was on September 12th, yeah. I keep track of it.”

“Thanks again for being more useful than my _actual partner,_ Saihara-chan. Momota-chan, once again, _how_ are you a detective?” Ouma rolled his eyes again, drawing circles around the dates he scribbled down. “If my deductions are correct, then we’ll have another attack in… One- No, _two_ days.”

“Sunday,” Momota said, more to himself than to Ouma, then started grumbling. “On _Sunday?!_ C’mon, man!”

“How did you figure it out?” Saihara asked, curiously. “The pattern, I mean. Not even the police could crack it, right?”

“Like I said, the police are imbeciles. We’ve had the case for ten days and I already started cracking it,” Ouma said with a crooked smile. “It’s not that difficult. It’s actually pretty simple.”

“What the hell does _that_ mean?!”

“It _means_ Moriarty is someone of routine,” Ouma answered, his crooked smile turning into a smug, proud one as he spinned a pencil between his fingers. “The strikes are not random. They’re prime numbers.”

Saihara blinked. “Prime numbers?”

“Yes,” Ouma nodded. “His first robbery happened on April 10th, 2017. Two days later, he attacked again. Three days after the second robbery, he striked again. Then five days later, then seven, then eleven, then thirteen. It goes up to a twenty-nine days gap between two attacks, then he goes back to two days after an attack, then three, then five and then seven, up to twenty-nine again, then back to two. Do you see it? The pattern?”

It was Saihara’s turn to nod, rubbing his chin with his index finger and thumb. “Two, three, five, seven, eleven, thirteen, seventeen, nineteen, twenty-three and twenty-nine are all prime numbers.”

Ouma nodded again, then marked something down with his pencil. “Today, we’re on the ninth day after his last attack, because he doesn’t count the day of a strike in his countdown. He starts counting on the day after. And we didn’t have an attack on the seventh day, so the next day he’ll strike following this pattern should be the eleventh, on September 23th, two days from now.”

For a moment, there was silence. As Ouma recovered his breath after infodumping Momota and Saihara, the latter two just stared at him in dumbfounded silence as they assimilated the information just thrown at them.

Then, slowly, an astonished smile formed on Saihara’s lips. He snorted in disbelief. _“Amazing.”_

Ouma blinked at him, surprised, then cleared his throat and scoffed, hoping his cheeks weren’t tinged pink. “Well _of course_ it is, I’m the greatest detective this world has ever seen. If the phantom thief is Moriarty, then I’m gonna be the damn Sherlock Holmes.”

“No, I mean it,” Saihara insisted, his smile becoming even bigger. “I’ve always known the detectives from the Future Foundation were top tier, but that was a whole new level of impressive! You said you just got the Moriarty case, right?” Ouma nodded. “And you already cracked his modus operandi! Amazing!”

Ouma blinked again, widening his eyes, then cleared his throat once more and looked away from Saihara, feeling his cheeks burning hot –for someone dressed entirely in dark clothes, Saihara sure was bright. Way too bright.

“...Okay,” Momota said in a hesitant voice, sighing. “If you two are going to start flirting, please tell me beforehand so I can leave the room.”

It was Saihara’s turn to blush now, the man awkwardly clearing his throat as his excitement died down and looking away from Ouma. Ouma bit the inside of his cheeks, sinking further into his chair until his checkered scarf covered his mouth and hopefully hid his flushed cheeks. Momota sighed again.

“You said he’s gonna act in two days from now, yeah?” The man temptatively asked, trying to change the subject before the silence became even more uncomfortable. “Do you know where he’ll strike?”

Ouma hummed negatively. “I may look like I know the answer to all the questions in the world, but unfortunately I do not, Momota-chan. I’m not omniscient yet.”

Saihara blinked. _“‘Yet’?”_

“Shit,” Momota said, running his fingers through his hair. Ouma always thought that it was some kind of miracle that his fingers didn’t get stuck in the hairspray-soaked strands. “Back to square one, then.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Ouma murmured, chewing on the nail of his right thumb. “We know when he will attack: this Sunday and thirteen days from then. And he doesn’t know that we know. When he strikes, this time we’ll be ready.”

“We still don’t know where he will strike, though, and Yokohama is so big,” Saihara said, lacing his fingers together in his lap and staring down at them. He then shot a nervous look between Ouma and Momota. “D-do we?”

“Not exactly,” Ouma replied, retrieving his notebook from Momota’s hands and throwing it on his desk. “But we might have a clue,” he then reached for the files and opened them, showing Saihara and Momota the papers containing the data from Moriarty’s previous attacks –he knew it was confidential, but Saihara _was_ their newbie and they _were_ taking care of him, so he might as well put him on track of everything. It wasn’t like Saihara would go out screaming about the things in the files or tell Moriarty himself. “As much as I _hate_ to admit it, Moriarty is smart. _Really_ smart. He likes the spotlight, but he hardly targets places that are _too_ risky for him –not counting his first strikes, of course, because he was quite ambitious back then,” he scoffed, then smiled smugly. “Now, what places could he possibly target today, here, in Yokohama, that fit these criteria?”

“The bank,” was Momota’s immediate answer. Ouma instantly gave him an unimpressed look.

 _“Really,_ Momota-chan? I literally _just_ told you that he hardly targets places that are too risky for him,” he rolled his eyes, then spinned his chair towards Saihara. “Got a shot, Saihara-chan? It should be quite obvious.”

Saihara placed his hand in front of his mouth and absently rubbed it as he thought over the places where Moriarty could possibly strike at. It was hard to tell with the long sleeves of his sweater almost covering his entire hand and hiding his mouth, but Ouma was sure he was chewing on his lips as he thought. “There is… This relatively new gallery selling antiques downtown,” Saihara started, voice barely louder than a whisper. “I heard that they are selling these small statues that they claim to be from the Meiji Era. I think- I think that’s one of the places he could strike at.”

Ouma smiled proudly. “That’s what I thought too. Saihara-chan, you truly are a blessing. I’m gonna talk to Kirigiri-san and ask her if you could be my partner instead since my partner is dumb.”

“I’m literally _right here,_ Ouma.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Ouma waved a dismissing hand, ignoring how Momota was grumbling. “I also think that the gallery is a possible target. Have been thinking for a while now –if it is not this weekend’s target, then it’s a future one. But it’s definitely a target.”

“So should we, like, send the cops there?” Momota asked, scratching his ugly goatee. One day Ouma would cut that thing off. “How do we know he’s gonna strike there?”

“Like I said, it’s a _possibility,”_ Ouma answered. “But I think we should send _at least_ two cars there, yes.”

“Right. On it,” Momota nodded, already taking his phone out of his pocket and standing. “I’m gonna talk to Harumaki and Kirigiri-san about this.”

“Bring me a soda from the vending machine on your way back!” Ouma yelled before Momota could exit the office, gaining a ‘go fuck yourself in a corner!’ as an answer (an exaggerated reaction, because Ouma knew he would bring the soda anyway). He giggled as Momota stormed out of the room with angry curses, then looked back at Saihara as the laughter eventually died down. “Well, Saihara-chan. Looks like you won’t be bored any longer.”

Saihara blinked at him, confusion crossing his eyes for a split of a second before he returned the warm smirk.

“Looks like it.”   
  


* * *

  
On Sunday, two days later, around midday, Momota, Ouma, Harukawa and a few others waited outside the relatively tall building of the antiques gallery for Moriarty to strike. That is, _if_ he would strike at that building –there was _still_ a possibility that Ouma guessed wrong and he would actually strike somewhere else, but better safe than sorry. 

The weather was particularly cold that morning, making Ouma shrink further into his wool cardigan and scarf every time the cold fall wind hit his body. Momota, however, seemed to be just fine by his side, wearing nothing but a thin cotton button-up white shirt and his coat in that odd way he always wore it, with his left arm properly inside the coat’s sleeve but the right just draped over his shoulder. The bars of his trousers were rolled up, too, exposing his thin ankles to the cold wind. And the galaxy-themed crocs, of course. Harukawa at least knew how to dress up in the cold weather, Ouma just half-acknowledged it –she had a black wool turtleneck and a wine red trench coat draped over her shoulders. Saihara, unfortunately, was not with them today, for he only worked part-time and couldn’t work on Sundays.

(What was really a shame, to be honest. He could use some distraction as he waited for Moriarty.) 

“Anything yet?” Harukawa asked Kamukura and Hinata through her radio earpiece, who were both waiting inside a van parked across the street. Judging by the way he stomped her feet impatiently on the floor, the answer was negative. _“This_ is why I don’t go on field missions.”

“Your division works with field missions too, Harukawa-chan,” Ouma reminded her, casually sipping from his teacup (that had only water) with a delighted expression on his face.

“It’s different,” Harukawa said, arms crossed over her chest. “Up there I can see everything by myself. I don’t have to depend on others to start acting.”

Ouma hummed against his teacup. “Must be difficult having to hold back from shooting every moving thing.”

Harukawa glared at him. “Do you wish to die? I can arrange that, since you’re a moving thing.”

“Eek! Momota-chan, your murderous girlfriend wants to kill me!”

“Deserved.”

“You’re so mean!”

“We’re not dating.”

 _“Harukawa,”_ came a fourth, different voice from Harukawa’s radio earpiece, making the three of them fall silent and attentive. _“He’s here. Fourth floor.”_

Harukawa instantly stood up. “On it,” she answered, and promptly stormed out of the small cafe they were all waiting at while Moriarty didn’t show himself. Momota even had time to finish his coffee before following her with Ouma in his track.

They didn’t wait for the elevator, just climbed all the stairs up to the fourth floor as fast as they could hoping they could catch him in time with a couple of police officers in pursuit. Ouma's heart pumped hard with adrenaline, loud against his ears, and his blood boiled in his veins with excitement –the idea of finally, _finally_ coming face to face with Moriarty, the phantom thief that had been terrorizing Yokohama for an entire year and finally, _finally_ catch him making him feel almost lightheaded as he made his way up to the fourth floor. Run faster, faster, _faster._ Get him, _get him._

The excitement, however, didn’t last long.

As soon as they reached the fourth floor, they were met with the sight of the gallery already invaded, the thick glass doors wide open so that anyone could walk through. Inside the gallery, far from the doors but still clearly visible from his point of view, a tall dark wooden pedestal with broken glass on the floor all around it. The artifacts that were previously being displayed on it were already nowhere to be seen.

Ouma stopped on his track and waited for the confirmation. He waited for the cops to search the gallery, then waited for them to announce their failure. Waited for the official verdict.

“He’s not here.”

_How?_

How did Moriarty do this so fast?

It just didn’t make any sense –Hinata couldn’t have told them about Moriarty being there for more than five minutes, but as soon as they reached the fourth floor (it wasn’t even a _high_ floor and difficult to access) the robbery had already happened and Moriarty was already nowhere to be seen. Was it a false alarm? Did Hinata mistake someone else for Moriarty? There was only a very small margin that this could have happened, but Ouma honestly doubted it; Hinata was a very good detective and had a keen vision, so mistaking someone else for Moriarty was hardly possible.

No, something else had happened.

“This is wrong,” he murmured as he walked into the gallery, careful not to step on the broken glass around the pedestal so as not to disturb evidence. “Something’s wrong.”

“What’s wrong?” Momota asked in the same low voice, also carefully jumping over the broken glass to reach Ouma. “He’s not here. We’re late.”

“That’s not possible,” Ouma insisted. “Unless he’s a hologram or a ghost, he couldn’t have just _disappeared.”_

_“G-G-Ghost?”_

But there was no mistake that Moriarty was not there. However, the robbery still had happened and there was no doubt of it. So unless Moriarty had simply _magically disappeared_ after he committed the theft, then… Then…

Magically disappeared...?

Ouma frowned at himself, then turned on his heels and propped up on his toes to take a look around the gallery.

It was not too extensive, maybe just a little smaller than the food court back at the Future Foundation facility, and there weren’t many spots where one could hide –it didn’t have many large shelves or pillars, and as far as he could see the only place _actually_ suited for a hiding spot was the front counter, and the cops and Momota had already checked on it and it was clean. There weren’t any windows or trapdoors, too, that could serve as an emergency exit, so to leave the gallery you _had_ to walk through the front door, but no one but Momota, Ouma, Harukawa and the others walked through that door, so how- how-

How…

… 

“Oi, you,” Ouma called the first police officer that walked past him, pressing his lips in a thin line. “Are there any side rooms here?”

“No, sir,” the officer replied. “The only thing besides this room is a small bathroom in the back of the room, but it has some heavy boxes in front of it and it’s locked. We already checked it.”

Ouma scoffed, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. “Is that so?”

He didn’t wait for an answer, just turned on his heels and walked towards where the office pointed at, the bathroom, in the farther right corner of the gallery. Just like the officer said, it had some boxes with a thick layer of dust over them, half-blocking the bathroom door, indicating that they had been there for quite a while now, but Ouma have always been someone small with a lithe body, so jumping over the boxes was no problem. Once he reached the door, he confirmed that it was locked, but locked places were also never a problem to him. He easily fished his lock-picking tools in his front pocket and unlocked the door in no time, drawing his eyebrows together as the door creaked open.

Just as he thought, it didn’t look like the bathroom was used recently (couldn’t be, with all those old, heavy boxes blocking the door). However, the tiny window above the toilet was open.

Ouma easily climbed the toilet and peeked outside the window, standing on his tiptoes, being met with the immediate view of a free fall all the way down to the streets. The bathroom window also faced a side street off the main highway, so not many people were around.

Excitement ran through his veins.

 _Oh,_ Moriarty was _smart._ He was _so smart._ He picked a _perfect_ place for a robbery, with an easy escape route off the main road and out of the spotlights, not too high so he could jump out of the window without breaking a bone in the fall if he knew how to land. Ouma almost laughed at how naive they all were to think they could catch Moriarty that easily, himself included.

The laughter, however, died in his throat when he caught a glimpse of a dark cape disappearing around a corner, a few windows away from the one he was peeking through.

Still… There.

Moriarty was _still there!_

He could _still catch him!_

Ouma wasted no time before climbing the rest of the way up to the bathroom window and easily sliding his lithe body outside, hissing when the cold fall wind sharply hit his body. He ignored Momota’s distressing screams coming from the gallery, the large boxes keeping the man from getting into the bathroom.

“He’s still here!” Ouma shouted at him through the window. “I’m gonna chase him!”

“You’re on the _fourth fucking floor,_ Ouma! Get your fucking ass back here!”

“There’s no time!” He shouted back. “I’m gonna chase him!”

_“No! Kokichi!”_

Ouma ignored him, hissing again and gritting his teeth as the cold wind kept blowing, firmly gripping the brick window sill with both hands and standing on the top of the window sill from the window beneath him in his tiptoes. His arms were shaking and his entire body trembled with adrenaline as he slowly moved to the side with baby steps, until he finally reached the end of the window sill and had to move to the other.

“Holy shit,” he murmured, staring down at the street far below him, his hair getting in the way of his vision with the violent wind. _“Holy shit,_ I’m gonna die. I’m gonna _die._ Shit, shit, shit.”

He counted down to three, briefly closing his eyes before taking a deep breath and jumping to the next window sill, almost slipping in the smooth brick beneath his feet. He let out a high-pitched wheeze, gripping the sill in front of his face so firmly he almost snapped his fingers.

“I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die. I’m _so_ gonna die. Oh my God, what am I doing? What am I _doing?”_

He jumped onto the next window sill, almost slipping again. Then to the next, and the one after it, until he reached the window where he saw Moriarty’s cape at and jumped through it, sighing in relief as he escaped certain death. It was only then that he noticed that it was not, in fact, a gallery room he landed into, but a tiny room with a single spiral stair leading upwards and downwards. He quickly stood and looked downwards, trying to see if he could see any traces of any part of Moriarty’s outfit, then looking upwards for the exact same reason. Once again, he caught a glimpse of Moriarty’s cape all the way up the stairs, and heard the unmistakable sound of a helicopter hovering the building.

Ouma hissed, promptly starting to climb up the stairs as he reached for his earpiece to contact Momota, trying to ignore how badly his legs were shaking and how they felt like jelly.

“He’s on the top floor! The roof!” He shouted at Momota through the earpiece and then let it go, grabbing his gun from the waist holster and wielding it as he reached the top floor after a minute or so of tireless race, his heart beating so fast inside his chest that he really was afraid of having a heart attack.

He opened the door to the roof wide open with a loud creak, slamming it against the wall next to it as he stepped onto the roof, his hands surprisingly steady in his grip despite his entire body shaking as he pointed his gun at Moriarty. There, the sound of the helicopter hovering just a few meters ahead of him was almost too loud to endure.

“S-stop! Stop right there! Don’t move!”

Moriarty didn’t stop, no. He _froze._ His body went completely still as he heard Ouma’s voice behind him, and for a very brief moment, he actually did stop just like Ouma told him to do. Through his peripheral vision, Ouma could see the person at the helicopter door freezing as well, their eyes widening in surprise as he aimed his gun at Moriarty.

But then, Moriarty slowly turned his head around to look at the detective from over his shoulders, with his eyes half-hidden behind his mask but full of curiosity, interest, wonder.

Then, he _smirked._

“Oh?” said Moriarty, now completely turning around to give Ouma his full attention, adjusting the strap of the transversal bag across his chest. Ouma briefly eyed the bag, most likely containing the antiques he just stole, then quickly looked back to Moriarty’s face. “Now _that’s_ interesting. Who are you? How did you find me?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Ouma replied. “Hands where I can see them.”

Moriarty giggled and raised his gloved hands, biting up a smile. “Aw, you got me. Are you a detective?”

Ouma scoffed ironically. “Take a guess.”

“Ah, so he’s sassy. I like it,” Moriarty giggled again, taking a step closer to Ouma, hands still in the air. “What’s your name, darling?”

“Joe.”

 _“Ah,_ classic. Unfortunately, it’s not gonna work with me,” the thief shrugged smugly. “Wanna try again, love?”

Ouma bit the inside of his cheeks, pressing his lips together. “...Ouma.”

“Detective Ouma,” Moriarty tried the name on his tongue, smirking afterwards, and Ouma felt chills running down his spine. “A beautiful name for a beautiful face.”

 _“Shut up,”_ Ouma hissed, refusing to let the thief get on his nerves. _He_ was the one who got on other people’s nerves, not the contrary. “You’re under arrest. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you.”

Moriarty didn’t say anything, but he took a tempting step closer, hands still raised, stopped for a moment, then continued walking once he was sure that Ouma was not gonna fire. He stopped right in front of him, and it wasn’t until then that Ouma noticed the _ridiculous_ height difference between them –if the height difference didn’t hit a good _30 centimeters,_ then it was a very approximate number.

The thief then smirked again, smugly, looking down at Ouma, tilting his head slightly to the side. _“Detective Ouma~~”_

And Ouma promptly choked with his own saliva like a goddamn idiot.

Moriarty giggled in a carefree way again, apparently satisfied with Ouma’s reaction, and fished a small card from his coat pocket. He slipped it into Ouma’s cardigan pocket, patting it twice before walking away from him while waving lazily as he walked towards the parapet of the building.

Quickly recovering his breath, Ouma widened his eyes and pointed his gun back at Moriarty, but now his grip was unsteady and shaky. Slowly, he lowered the gun –it wouldn’t be wise to fire his gun in this condition.

“S-stop! I said stop!” He still shouted, grunting at himself for stuttering like a high schooler. _“Shit,_ fuck. Stop!”

Moriarty smiled at him again, hooking his arm around the rope ladder like he did on TV the last time, and waved at the detective. At that moment, the police officers and Momota stormed onto the roof, but it was already too late. _“Au revoir,_ Mr. Detective,” said Moriarty, smugly. “May we meet again.”

Ouma watched as the helicopter flew away from the building, only distantly listening to the loud police sirens as they chased after the helicopter, until his knees finally gave in under him and he fell to the floor once the helicopter was too distant for him to hear it. Momota tried to catch him before he fell, but the impetus was enough to send him to the floor as well.

“Ouma! Ouma, are you okay?!” Momota shouted, but his voice seemed distant. Ouma laid down half on the roof, half on Momota’s arm and stared at the pale blue skies above him in silence, breathing heavily, his heart beating fast inside his chest. “Dude, you scared the shit out of me! Don’t jump out of windows like that! Ouma! Are you listening?! Did he hurt you?! Did he?!”

“I’m _fine,_ Momota-chan. Calm your tits,” Ouma annoyingly answered when Momota started to get too loud. “I’m just tired. I jumped over window sills and had to run up several flights of stairs. _And_ I just let a highly dangerous criminal escape. Lemme rest.”

“Shit. Fuck, okay,” Momota sighed in relief. “But he didn’t hurt you, did he?”

“Aside from my pride, no, he did not.”

Momota sighed in relief again, then removed his coat and put it beneath Ouma's head as an improvised pillow so the man wouldn't get a headache later for lying down on the hard roof like that. He sat down by his side and talked to Harukawa and some police officers while Ouma just stared at the sky in silence, waiting for the adrenaline to run dry and his heartbeat to steady, before he suddenly remembered something that had happened briefly before Moriarty had made his exit.

He blindly reached for his cardigan pocket, and blinked in surprise when his fingers brushed against something. He picked the thing up, being met with a small black business card with very faint white stripes and gold details. Right in the middle of the card, it was written in golden letters:

_MORIARTY_

_\- phantom thief  
_ _\- consulting criminal  
_ _\- napoleon of crime_

_If you were lucky enough to get this card, call me whenever you need it!_

_XXXXX-XXXX_

Ouma blinked at the words, too stunned to do anything else, and rubbed his eyes to see if he was just imagining things, but even after two whole minutes of rubbing his eyes over and over again, the words were still there, silently looking back at him.

Moriarty-

Moriarty gave him his _fucking business card._

Oh, that chase had _just_ become personal.  
  


* * *

  
The next day, Ouma showed up for work just as usual, arriving earlier than Momota and later than Harukawa. But this time, however, he had a large cup of coffee in his hands instead of the usual grape soda he always drank in the mornings, because he needed it after the fiasco from yesterday, and Saihara was already there waiting for the office to be opened when he arrived.

He sighed, giving the newbie a small smile as he unlocked the office door. “Good morning, Saihara-chan. My days would be so much happier if your face was the first thing I saw in the mornings.”

Saihara blinked, confused by Ouma’s sudden discouragement despite the casual flirting. “Uh, good morning, Ouma-san,” he said, following Ouma inside the office. “Are you- um, are you okay? You seem down.”

“I told you that _‘Ouma-kun’_ is fine,” Ouma sighed again, placing his coffee over his desk before dropping in his chair, staring at the ceiling above him. “Tough weekend, that’s all.”

“Ah,” Saihara said, timidly sitting down in one of the chairs in front of Ouma’s desk. He pulled the sleeves of his sweater to cover both hands. “I saw- I saw the news, yesterday. You almost got him, didn’t you?”

“More like he almost got _me,”_ Ouma scoffed. Saihara smiled quietly. “But I’m not worried. I’m gonna catch him in no time,” then he took a sip of his coffee, instantly making a grimace and sticking his tongue out, regretting having spent his money on that. “Ugh, this thing is terrible. How do you and Momota-chan drink this crap?”

Saihara chuckled softly, picking on a loose thread of his sweater. “It gets better with time. You get used to it.”

“No, thanks,” he pushed the coffee towards Saihara. “Take it, I don’t want it. It has some sugar but it’s still bitter like your soul or whatever.”

Saihara chuckled softly again, accepting the coffee with a timid ‘thank you’. He took a sip, humming in delight. “It feels good. Just how I like it. Thank you again, Ouma-sa- um, _kun.”_

“Fool, you have just sold your soul to me,” Ouma giggled, making one of his manic faces that usually were reserved especially for Momota but sometimes worked on Saihara as well. “You are now my servant. Your life belongs to me now.”

“E-eh?!”

“You shall now call me Ouma-sama. I am your master.”

“O-Ouma-sama.”

“Sai- Saihara-chan! I was kidding!”

“S-Sorry!”

Ouma laughed, covering his face with both hands when he felt his face reddening a little with the formal way Saihara addressed him. Saihara joined him with a soft snort after a moment, and the heavy burden of having failed on such an important mission in such a pathetic way yesterday seemed to ease a little on his shoulders, although it did not completely fade.

Momota chose that moment to join them, entering the office in his usual boisterous way carrying a tray with two three cups and two large brown fast-food bags. “Shit, you already have coffee. Morning!”

Ouma raised an eyebrow at his partner, then watched him cross the distance between them with a frown, suspiciously. “What are you doing here?” He asked once Momota joined them at his desk, placing the tray with the cups and one of the bags over it before sitting down in the free chair next to Saihara.

Momota opened the bag he kept for himself and picked a French-fry. “What do you mean what am I doing here? I work here.”

“Yes, and in all these years that you worked here I can name in my head every time you arrived on time. It’s barely nine in the morning now, Momota-chan.”

“I don’t- I don’t _always_ arrive late, okay?!”

“Saihara-chan,” Ouma addressed the man, watching as he jumped startled in his seat with the sudden addression, a French-fry halfway through his mouth. “You’ve been working here for almost two weeks now. How many times did you see Momota-chan arriving on time?”

“Um,” Saihara murmured, eyes slightly widened, slowly munching his French-fry. He looked between Momota and Ouma. “I think, uh- I-I think today was the first time.”

“Wha- _seriously,_ man?!”

“See?”

“Okay, _fine,”_ Momota grunted, angrily eating his fries before taking a bite of his burger. “We just have a lot of shit to do today, okay? I don’t wanna make boss mad.”

Ouma smirked smugly, satisfied with Momota’s answer, then reached for his burger in the bag at the desk and his soda. They ate their burgers in a comfortable silence, casually making small talk here and there just to break the silence when it started to last for too long, and when they were done, Harukawa showed up in the office to pick them up.

“Ouma,” she said at the door, arms crossed over her chest. “Yonaga is waiting for you.”

“Coming~”

Yonaga Angie was a peculiar woman who worked in the fifth division with Shirogane and Yamada, and specialized in making composite sketches for people who came across with criminals. She had a lab for herself, and because she was not always needed, like Harukawa, the place was often filled with several doodles and paintings and rough sketches of several random things, because before joining the Future Foundation she studied art. Overall, she was really chill (when not irritated, of course) and her voice was incredibly soothing, making her perfect for her job, but Ouma always felt a little uneasy around her. Maybe it was because she spoke in the third person. Or because even though she was chill most of the time, he could feel a dangerous aura around her that even _Harukawa_ didn’t have.

“Kokichi, Kaito, the newbie! Hi!” Yonaga greeted them once they reached her lab, sitting cross-legged in her chair and with her hands clasped together over her chest. “Come in, come in! God told Angie that Kokichi has something to tell her!”

“Yeah, yeah,” Ouma said, taking a seat in the chair in front of Yonaga. “I told them it’s useless because I didn’t see his face, but I don’t have anything better to do at the moment so let’s do it I guess.”

“Well don’t be shy then!” Yonaga said with the same open, warm smile from before, reaching for a large sketchbook and some coal on the table next to her. “Tell Angie everything!”

Ouma did. He told her everything he could remember about his encounter with Moriarty the day before, and didn't hold back in describing the tiny details he remembered, because he _knew_ that Yonaga would manage to capture them perfectly. Described his smug smile and intense eyes and relaxed posture in general, despite being at gunpoint. He described the pale skin, and the long, navy blue hair with a single, thin braid on the left side, much like Kirigiri’s, and the asymmetrical cape and the stupid giant hat and the silver mask covering half of his face and those _ridiculously tall platform boots_ full of buckles and the black gloves and the stupid _cane_ he was holding and the idiotic _white Victorian cravat_ (who the fuck wore a _cravat_ in _2018?!)._ Everything about stupid Moriarty and his stupid outfit was so goddamn _stupid_ , it _infuriated_ Ouma.

(He didn’t tell her, however, about the shameless flirting and the stupid business card, because he hardly thought it would be necessary.)

Once he was done with his report, and she was done with her sketch, she turned the sketchbook around to show him what she had drawn, and he promptly felt all the air leaving his lungs.

The art looked exactly, _exactly_ like Moriarty. From the long hair with the thin braid to the smug smile to the sharp jawline to the stupid white cravat. Everything. Everything looked exactly like Ouma remembered.

(Everything, but the absolute wonder in his eyes when Ouma almost caught him.)

“Holy shit, Yonaga, Ouma. That’s Moriarty?” Momota said, astonished, taking Ouma away from his drifting thoughts. Ouma nodded. “He’s ugly as _fuck.”_

Ouma instantly choked with his own saliva, wheezed and started laughing _hysterically._

“You really think so, Kaito?” Yonaga said, ignoring Ouma almost dying in front of her. She stared at her own art. “Angie thinks he looks kinda like the newbie.”

“W-what?!” Saihara said in a high-pitched voice, making Ouma laugh even deeper.

“He does!” Yonaga insisted. “You see? Their jawline is kinda alike.”

Momota took a closer look. He hummed in agreement. “Yes, I can see that,” he then turned towards Saihara, and jokingly asked: “Are you _Moriarty, Saihara?”_

_“What?!”_

“Don’t be stupid, Momota-chan. Of course Saihara-chan is not Moriarty,” Ouma scoffed, recovering from his laughter outburst.

“Oh yeah?” Momota said, placing both hands on his waist, repeatedly stomping his right foot on the floor. “Tell me your evidence.”

Ouma smirked, making sure he had Saihara’s eyes on his as he replied, twirling a strand of his hair between his fingers: “Because Moriarty is wack and Saihara-chan is _handsome,_ of course. Have you seen his face? An actual blessing to this world.”

Saihara wheezed again, bringing both hands up to cover his face and hide his blush, and Momota started grumbling while Yonaga started giggling.

Momota pressed the bridge of his nose, annoyed. “No flirting when I’m present in the room, please.”

Saihara _‘eek’_ ed again. Ouma grinned proudly.  
  


* * *

  
When they returned to their office after spending some time with Yonaga, Ouma instantly realized three things:

One: The door was unlocked.

Two: It wasn’t an _accident_ that the door was unlocked, because Momota was sort of paranoid in this regard and always made sure to lock the doors when he left the office. So someone _definitely_ broke in while they were out.

Three: There was a letter on Ouma’s desk that _definitely_ was not there when they left the room.

He approached his desk slowly, warily, as if he was waiting for a trap to activate and the room to explode, but it did not happen. He did not immediately pick the letter up, too, for this exact same reason, and waited for Harukawa’s verdict as she came over to examine the letter.

After ten minutes or so of examining parts of the office and the letter, Harukawa removed her glasses and stood. “It’s clean.”

Ouma wasted no time and immediately picked up the letter, opening its envelope and grabbing whatever its inside contained: a single paper, with random letters written in fancy calligraphy.  
  


_“tis ita hw. e vit cet ed, y as. r eth gua lsl lik nda, efi lsd ne, r etf asw oll ofd nat sri fse moc ti. s lli fti sel ohy tpm edn a,sl lih red nun das rat sdn ihe bse ilt i. tl ems ebt nac dna, dra ehe btn ac, t lef ebt nac, nee seb tna cti.”  
  
_

Ouma frowned at the message, trying to make up words but understanding nothing, slightly disappointed. Momota and Saihara both peeked over his shoulders, curious, at the letter's contents.

“What in the _world is that?!”_ Momota said, asking Ouma’s exact thoughts at that moment. Saihara was silent, but he seemed to hum as he thought over something.

“I think it’s someone playing a trick on you,” Harukawa said, also peeking over Ouma’s shoulders. “Someone got tired of your antics and decided to trick you back. It was bound to happen.”

“No, I don’t think it’s that, Harukawa-chan,” Ouma murmured, analysing the message. “Someone broke into our office to deliver this. If it was only a trick, they would’ve slid it through the door gap. No, this is something else.”

“I also think so, Harumaki,” Momota said, scratching his goatee as he tried to read the message. He pointed to the letters. “See? This was done using a computer so that we couldn't identify them through their calligraphy. Someone trying to play a trick wouldn’t think this far.”

Ouma scoffed. _“Well-”_

 _“Quiet,”_ Momota hissed. “I’m trying to defend you here. Be quiet.”

“My hero in golden armor, Momota-chan,” Ouma scoffed again, rolling his eyes. “Or in ugly galaxy-themed crocs, that is.”

“Will you _stop with the-”_

“I think it’s a cipher.”

Ouma and Momota both instantly stopped bickering, blinking towards Saihara. “Uh?”

Saihara pushed his glasses backwards, suddenly uncomfortable with everyone’s attention on him. “I think, uh- I think it’s a cipher,” he repeated, more firmly, then pointed to the note still in Ouma’s hands. “Do you see how the letters are separated into groups of three?” All the three of them nodded, moving closer to inspect the note. “But do you see how there’s also some dots and commas too?” They nodded again. “I think it’s, uh- I think it’s supposed to mean that the message it’s purposely tempered with. It’s a cipher.”

A beat. “Saihara-chan, you are a genius,” Ouma said, smiling widely. “I could honestly kiss you until you’re breathless right now.”

“Please don’t,” Momota said.

“U-um,” Saihara pushed his glasses backwards again. “T-thank you?”

Ouma grinned at him, then moved to sit in his chair behind his desk. Momota brought his own chair closer to Ouma’s and sat down next to him, while Saihara and Harukawa took the two chairs in front of the desk.

Ouma grabbed the note, a pencil and his notebook. “Let’s try to decode it, shall we?”

Saihara nodded, Harukawa crossed her arms over her chest and sighed, saying that the investigation stuff was not her forte, but complied. Momota pointed to the ponctuation in the note. “Try to separate the letters following grammar rules: dots mark the end of a sentence, space after a comma.”

Ouma hummed, then did as Momota said: he rewrote the note in his notebook, properly following the grammar rules, but the end result was not all that different from the original note. It was still impossible to decode.

“Hmm,” Momota hummed, inspecting the new note. “I have absolutely no idea what the hell that means.”

“Of course you don’t,” Harukawa said. “The decoding is not done yet. You have to do something about the obviously wrong spaces between the letters first.”

Momota grumbled. “And what exactly do you expect us to do?”

Harukawa shrugged. “The three of you are the criminal investigators, not me.”

“Do you think it’s a Caesar cipher?” Saihara asked Ouma, leaning over the desk to look at the note. Ouma shot Saihara a look before biting his lips.

“Let’s see.”

He tried to decode it using Caesar’s cipher, which consisted in replacing each plaintext letter with a different one a fixed number of places down the alphabet, but it didn’t take long for him to notice that that was not it. He tried to use three, four, five, six letters down, but the message still didn’t make sense.

“Damn it,” Momota grunted, running his fingers through his hair. Saihara bit his lips, seeming to be disappointed with himself for not being able to crack the code.

“I _told_ you,” Harukawa sighed. “You have to do something about the space between the letters first.”

Ouma bit his lips again, then sighed. “I’m gonna rewrite the message without any spaces, then we’ll see if we can understand something.”

Harukawa shrugged again while Momota and Saihara nodded, moving closer to see Ouma rewriting the note. Once he was done, he showed the message to Harukawa.  
  


_“tisitahw. evitceted, yas. rethgualslliknda, efilsdne, retfaswollofdnatsrifsemocti. slliftiselohytpmedna, sllihrednundasratsdnihebseilti. tlemsebtnacdna, draehebtnac, tlefebtnac, neesebtnacti.”  
  
_

Ouma arched his eyebrows towards Harukawa. “Can you understand _anything_ here, Harumaki-chan?”

“Do _not_ call me that,” Harukawa glared at him, then took the notebook from his hands. She studied the note. “Hm, let’s see.”

She took a pencil from Ouma’s desk, started scribbling things down. A frown formed on her forehead and her lips were pressed together as she concentrated. After a moment, she shook her head negatively and scratched something, then started writing down again.

Momota leaned over to whisper something to Ouma, but Ouma raised his hand to interrupt him. “If you are going to talk about _‘how cute she looks’_ when concentrated then don’t.”

“So you can talk about Saihara and your other boy crushes but I can’t talk about Harumaki?”

“Yes.”

“Understandable, have a nice day.”

“Anytime~”

 _“Ah!”_ Harukawa said, making Ouma and Momota turn to look at her. Surprisingly, she was smiling. Or at least not with her eternal scowl. “I get it.”

“You do?!” All the other three said at the same time, leaning over to look at the notebook. “What does it say?” Momota asked.

“Here,” she handed over the notebook, biting the inside of her cheeks. Ouma noticed that her cheeks were slightly flushed. “It was not a cipher. It was just written from back to front.”

Ouma blinked at her, impressed. “For someone who doesn’t work with criminal investigation, you sure know a lot of things about ciphers, Harumaki-chan. Do you want to tell us something?”

“Yes,” Harukawa glared at him. “You have 206 bones in your body and I can break each one of them while naming them if you call me that again.”

“Oohh, scary~~”

She glared at him again, then sighed and decided to pick on a strand of her long hair instead of arguing with him. He giggled at her, then leaned over Momota to see what was written in the notebook.  
  


_“It can't be seen, can't be felt, can't be heard, and can't be smelt. It lies behind stars and under hills, and empty holes it fills. It comes first and follows after, ends life, and kills laughter. Say, detective. What is it?”  
  
_

“It’s a riddle,” Harukawa said, puffing her cheeks.

 _“Moriarty_ sent that?” Momota asked, stunned. “To Ouma?”

“Naturally,” Ouma scoffed, rolling his eyes, then adjusted himself in his chair and cleared his throat. “Hm, let’s see.”

A beat. “The air can’t be seen and can’t be smelt, but can be felt and heard,” Saihara murmured, rubbing his chin as he analysed the riddle. “It also fills empty holes, and if you look at it through a certain point of view, it does come first –the first thing you do when you are born is to breathe, and the last thing you do before dying is also to breathe.”

“That’s a good point, Saihara-chan. But I don’t think that’s it, unfortunately. It doesn’t fit the other parts of the riddle,” Ouma murmured back, chewing on his lips. “Kudos to you, however.”

“What is it, then?” Momota asked, also chewing on his lips and rubbing his chin. “I’m not the best at riddles.”

“Microbes?”

 _“Microbes,_ Saihara?!”

“I-it was worth a shot!”

“No,” Harukawa said. “It’s the dark.”

Ouma blinked. “The dark?”

She hummed. “I’ve heard this one before, back at the orphanage, but I couldn’t remember the answer. I do now. It’s the dark. Can’t be seen, heard, felt or smelt. Lies behind the stars and beneath the earth and in empty holes. Before you are born and after you die there’s nothing. It’s the dark.”

“Ah,” Saihara said. “I-I see. So no microbes or the air...”

“The dark…” Ouma murmured, his hand covering his mouth as he thought over the answer. He looked outside the windows as his mind drifted away, squinting his eyes at the clarity, ignoring Momota as he stuck his saliva-soaked finger into his ear to distract him –it was surprisingly sunny outside, despite being rather cold. He pulled the sleeves of his cardigan over to cover his hands, dried the saliva from his ear. “The dark…”

Moriarty, somehow, had broken into their office while they were in Yonaga’s office and delivered a message, clearly addressed to Ouma. The message was a code, one that took them a while to decipher, but they did, and then they had a riddle to solve. Harukawa did it again, but the answer was yet another riddle –Moriarty wouldn’t break into their office, risking being caught, only to play a trick on Ouma. No, there was a meaning behind this. The answer meant something.

The dark…

The… Dark…?

“The dark,” he said out loud, suddenly standing. He looked around the office, pointed at the door. He removed his cardigan and handed it to Saihara. “Saihara-chan, close the door and turn off the lights. Momota-chan, help me close the blinds. Let’s make sure it’s as dark as possible here.”

“What?” Momota said at the same time Saihara stood with a simple ‘okay’ and started doing what Ouma told him to do. “You got something, Ouma?’

“Maybe,” Ouma replied, moving to close the blinds behind his desk. “Help me.”

Momota did. He stood and quickly helped Ouma to close the blinds, making sure it was as dark as possible in the office just like Ouma asked him to –that is, as dark as they could possibly make the office at that time. It was still around midday, the sun was shining bright outside and their windows were made of glass. Only closing the blinds (and using his cardigan as an improvised curtain for the glass panel on the door) would not make the room as dark as Ouma needed it to be, but it was enough.

Once the blinds and the door were properly closed and the lights were off, Ouma turned around on his heels to take a full look around the office. When he didn’t find anything worth noticing, he moved to stand over his desk, and looked around the office again.

This time, he found something glowing a faint green above one of the bookshelves.

“There!” He pointed to the correct bookshelf. “Over the bookshelf! There’s something glowing with fluorescent paint.”

Momota nodded and walked to the bookshelf, standing on his tiptoes to reach for whatever was glowing with the fluorescent paint. He got it after a moment of blind grope, another small papel covered in green fluorescent paint. Momota twisted his nose as he brought the note to Ouma, his hands now sticky and dirty with fluorescent paint and dust.

“Aw, man. I hope this comes out easily.”

Ouma ignored Momota as he continued to complain about his sticky hand until Saihara got him some toilet paper to clean it off. He opened the new letter, ignoring how the green paint also stuck to his hands, and read its contents.   
  


“.-. --- --- -.. / .- / - --- -. / ... .. / .-. --- --- -.. / .- / -. . .... .--”  
  


“Morse code now? Really?” Momota peeked over his shoulders. “What is this dude doing? Does he think it’s funny?” 

“He probably does,” Ouma replied with a smirk, picking up his pen to scribble down the code and decode it. “Good. I’m having fun too.”

This time, the code was decoded in no time. After he was done, Momota peeked over his shoulders again and frowned. _“Rood a ton si- what?”_

“It’s written from back to front again,” Saihara pointed. “Um, _‘when a door is not a door’?”_

“When it’s ajar.”

“What?”

“The answer to this riddle,” Ouma said, absently eyeing the office door. “This one is easy. When a door is not a door,” he proceeded, already moving towards the office door. He inspected the wood briefly before opening it, but just slightly. “When it’s ajar.”

There, next to the top hinge and the top hail, was a small piece of folded paper that was only seen when the door was ajar.

Ouma almost got chills with how smart Moriarty was. For someone who could potentially become a victim of said criminal, Ouma was just a _little too excited_ about this sudden game in which he was thrown into.

“Momota-chan,” Ouma called him. “A little helping hand please.”

“Of course,” Momota quickly complied, taking the small piece of paper from the door and handing it to Ouma before even opening it. When Ouma arched an eyebrow at him, he just shrugged. “You’re better with riddles than I am.”

Ouma eyed him for a second longer, then shrugged too and opened the paper, reading its contents.

This time, only looking at the contents gave him a headache.

It was another cipher, of course. Moriarty hardly would make things easier for them, so of course he would only make the riddles harder to decode. But Ouma could tell that this one would be a tricky one to decode with just one look.

… Or at least he thought so.

“Oh!” Momota gasped behind him, looking at the new message from over his shoulders. “Oh, I know this one!”

Ouma eyed him skeptically. “You _do?”_

 _“Yes!”_ Momota nodded, bringing the note over to his desk so he could decode it. He got his chair from Ouma’s desk and sat down, picking up his own notebook and a pen to start decoding.

Harukawa glanced at the note with a frown. “What type of cipher is _that?_ Is _this_ Caesar’s cipher?”

“Nope,” Ouma, Saihara and Momota replied at the same time. “I don’t know if it has a name, but this is something I used to do with my cousins and some of my friends when we were kids. It’s not that difficult to learn,” Momota smiled, quickly writing things down in his sloppy, ugly handwriting. He stopped briefly to point to certain parts of the message. “See, the consonants are just mirrored and the Ks are supposed to replace the vowels. Do you see the lines above the Ks?” Ouma and Harukawa nodded. “They’re indicating the position of the vowel we’re using –one scratch for A, two for E, and so on.”

Harukawa arched an eyebrow. “You _do realize_ that knowing the cipher Moriarty used here is really suspicious, right? Raises a big red flag.”

“Well, _yes,_ but not really,” Momota said. “I mean, I know what you meant, but there was a time that my entire class knew this code, so it’s not like this is something _Moriarty_ created, is it? Besides, it’s-”

“Ah!” Saihara’s eyes lit up in recognition as he stared at the cipher. “Wait, I know this one too! I used to do this with my friends too when we were kids.”

“See?” Momota smiled at Harukawa. “It’s pretty easy to learn and decode when you know about it,” Momota snorted. “Good for cheating on tests. Here, it’s done.”

Ouma wasted no time before hurriedly snatching the notebook from Momota’s hands, looking at what the man had written. Harukawa and Saihara curiously moved to peer over his shoulders

 _“Since you were so smart last time, how about we play a game?  
_ _Bank of Yokohama, this weekend, when the sun goes down._

_Catch me if you can, detective ;)”_

He blinked at the note, once, twice.

Uh.

“Dude,” Momota said, with a mix of disbelief and amusement in his voice. “Dude, I think he’s _flirting_ with you.”

Great! As if yesterday was not weird enough already.

 _“Moriarty,”_ Harukawa slowly said, as if she was testing out the name in her tongue. “The criminal, Moriarty, phantom thief, who has been making the police a fool for an entire year, is flirting with Ouma? With _Ouma?”_

“A _criminal_ broke into our office and you’re more worried about the fact that he’s _flirting with Ouma?”_

“I honestly don’t know which one of these things seems the most unbelievable to me.”

“U-um, I-I think we should focus on the part of the note that says he’s gonna strike again at the _end of the weekend?”_

 _“Shit,_ you’re right.”

“Yokohama has _hundreds_ of banks. He could strike at literally _any_ of them.”

“Well if he just said _‘bank of Yokohama’_ then it should be one of the main ones, Harumaki! Shouldn’t it?”

“T-the Kanagawa bank, then?”

“It’s worth a shot. Besides, I don’t think Moriarty wouldn’t go out of his way to deliver a message and flirt with Ouma only to strike at a random bank. I will talk to Kirigiri-san about this.”

Ouma thought about intervening in the sudden argument, about telling them about his encounter with Moriarty the day before, about how shamelessly Moriarty had flirted with him and about how they were probably right, but decided to keep quiet.

It was just as Harukawa said –if Moriarty had gone through all of this work of breaking into their office, in the _sixth floor_ of the _Future Foundation_ facility, not only to deliver a coded message telling him about his next strike but also to _flirt_ with him through a mind game of sharp intellects, then Ouma should play his game, too, only this once.

Only this once, Ouma should humour him.

He should humour Moriarty.

 _❝_ _Climbing out the back door, didn’t leave a mark,  
_ **_No one knows it’s you, Miss Jackson._ ** _❞_

_– Miss Jackson, Panic! At the Disco_


	2. hit & run

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter: Ouma and Saihara go on a date, Ouma has intrusive gay thoughts, Moriarty has a Reddit page and is a (sexy) prick. Someone gets a boner. Meanwhile, Momota is banned from talking about Simple Plan and Harukawa comes out as an emo (not clickbait).
> 
> Are Komaeda-chan the Janitor and Hinata-chan from the Seventh Division dating?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Valentine's Day!!! Here, have some criminal boyfriends to commemorate <3 (fun fact, my friends and I decided that Ouma x Moriarty should be called 'Smooth Criminal')
> 
> WARNING: Two characters get into a car accident in this chapter! It's a very brief scene and it's not a bad accident, just more of a startle than anything, and they only get some very superficial, minor wounds, but it's still a car accident so I thought it would be better if I warned y'all about it so it doesn't catch you off guard. If you wish to skip the scene, just skip the paragraph after "Momota, instantly, tried to brake and swerve, but it was already too late."!
> 
> Enjoy!!

_❝ Get down,_  
 _Swaying to my own sound,  
_ **_Flashes in my face now,  
_ ** **_All I know is everybody loves me._ ** _❞_

_– Everybody Loves Me, OneRepublic_

• • •

**Yokohama, September 29th, 2018. Saturday.**

The sun was beginning to set on the horizon by the time he reached the bank’s rooftop.

It was colder today than it was last time, and the high altitude did not help him at all, but the long and thick cape he was wearing was enough to at least keep him warm. He stood over the edge of the roof, beyond the protection railing but still with one hand on it to keep himself from accidentally falling to his death, watching as the sun slowly, slowly set behind the tall skyscrapers. He hummed the song playing in his earbuds while gripping the small folded paper inside his trousers pocket.

His communication earpiece hissed, and a female voice came out of it through the static after a second or two. _“Hey!”_ Said the voice. _“Hey, it’s Lune! Moriarty, where are you?”_

The man on the rooftop, Moriarty, hummed. “Roof.”

 _“Of course you are,”_ Lune scoffed, then screamed through the earpiece, most likely to her partner: _“He’s on the rooftop!”_

Said partner joined the conversation a moment later, giggling softly. _“Yes, I know. You used the general voice channel, Lune.”_

 _“I did?”_ She asked, more to herself than the other two, then cursed under her breath. _“Crap, I did. Sorry.”_

There was a yawn on call, and a third voice joined them. _“Freaked me out a little. Thought you got caught.”_

 _“M-me too!”_ A fifth voice, and the whole squad was present.

 _“I’m coming up, Moriarty. Stay where you are,”_ Mage yawned through the earpiece again, then sighed. _“Man, why do you always make me go up several flights of stairs? What a pain.”_

Moriarty giggled, leaned on the protection railing behind him, crossed his arms over his chest. “How is everything down there, Ace?”

Ace hummed. _“There are already some police cars parked here, and the street is blocked,”_ he replied, apparently tapping things down in his laptop judging by the unmistakable tap-tap-tap of the keyboard. He also took a sip of his coffee, judging by the loud slurp sound. _“I see the lady with the lilac hair and her... Husband? Boyfriend? But no sign of your detective or his partner yet. Are you sure they’ll come?”_

“They’ll be there,” Moriarty easily replied, twisting the note in his pocket between his fingers.

Midori, Lune’s partner, seemed to hesitate. _“How can you be so sure? He could be on his way to_ your _location now, for all you know.”_

Moriarty didn’t immediately reply, but he hummed at Midori. Then, he smiled at himself, picked the note from his pocket and unfolded it, reading the coded message he already knew oh-so well once again.

  
 _“Since you were so smart last time, how about we play a game?  
_ _Bank of Yokohama, this weekend, when the sun goes down._

_Catch me if you can, detective ;)”  
  
_

His smirk became wilder. He picked up the lighter he always carried with himself, lit the flame and turned the note around, hovering the bottom right corner of the note above the flame for a second or two.

Slowly, the word “Kanagawa bank” appeared in sight, written in invisible ink. 

He smiled again, held the flame closer. Detective Ouma and the others did not have time to do this with the note, back at that day, because it was not needed –Saihara had to casually mention the bank to lead them in the right direction when the conversation started to go astray, because forcing them to keep investigating the note would be too suspicious, and he was already risking himself _way_ too much with that internship at the Future Foundation. In fact, when thinking about that day, Moriarty doubted they would even _think_ about invisible ink at a time like that.

Which is _exactly_ why he had done it. Because although he loved the chase, he couldn’t risk being caught. Not after last time.

The flame touched the note, and the note caught fire. As the paper burned, the ‘g’ in ‘Kanagawa’ slowly faded to a ‘z’ with the heat.

On the rooftop of the Kanazawa bank, Moriarty laughed deeply. In a building across the Kanagawa bank, Ace informed through the communication earpiece that Detective Ouma and his partner had arrived.

Mage reached the rooftop with her filming equipment, breathing heavily and wheezing. Moriarty let go of the burning note, watching as the strong evening wind carried it away from him. Adrenaline ran through his veins, burning as hot as the flames burning down the note.

He reached for his earpiece. “Lune, Midori. Are you ready?”

 _“I’m ready!”_ Lune replied.

 _“Yes,”_ Midori answered.

Moriarty smirked like the Cheshire cat.

“It’s _showtime,_ fellas.”  
  


* * *

 _  
He rested smugly against the rooftop rail, with his elbows on the railing and his head tilted slightly to the side, smirking to the camera. Behind him, in the distance, flashes could be seen and helicopters could be heard. “So I have been informed that a certain detective from a certain detective agency managed to crack my code and I must say, I’m impressed. Is he perhaps my fated nemesis? Sherlock Holmes to my Moriarty? He even almost managed to catch me, too, and_ oh~! _How it surprised me! Truly did! But of course, I would never surrender myself after one single encounter, not even for a pretty boy like Mr. Detective. It’s just, like, not like me at aaall~~”_

_He giggled, then stopped for a moment, reached for something off camera and brought it to the frame. A small metal box, already broken, containing a bracelet made of gold. The item he just stole from the bank. He smirked again._

_“So_ my Detective, _please do keep doing your best to entertain me, yes? Because I am. I_ am _entertained. We shall meet again in a close, very close future. After all, we are now fated to~~”_

_Over and out.  
  
_

* * *

**  
URGENT: THE PHANTOM THIEF MORIARTY TARGETS THE BANK OF YOKOHAMA!**

**MORIARTY STRIKES AGAIN!**

**BRACELET WORTH AN ESTIMATED SIX THOUSAND DOLLARS IS STOLEN FROM THE NAKAMURA FAMILY SAFE.**

**CRIMINAL ORGANIZATION KEEPS TERRORIZING YOKOHAMA.**

**QUIZ: WHICH GARRIDEB ARE YOU? MORIARTY, LUNE OR MIDORI?**

**IS HE GAY? PHANTOM THIEF MORIARTY JUST ADMITTED TO HAVE A CRUSH ON MALE DETECTIVE [NOT CLICKBAIT].  
  
**

* * *

**  
Yokohama, October 1st, 2018. Monday.**

“I’m a failure.”

Because of the scarf covering his whole face, Ouma was not able to see Saihara’s reaction, but judging by the sound of the soles of his boots suddenly sliding sharply on the floor, he was startled.

A beat. “You are not a failure, Ouma-s- _kun.”_

“Yes I am. Yes I _am,_ Saihara-chan,” Ouma whined, dramatically lying sprawled over his desk. “He made a fool of me on live TV. He deceived me like I was a toddler and made a fool of me. My reputation is ruined. My life is over. The drama of the reputed detective Ouma Kokichi, age 26, now renting under a bridge because his career was destroyed by a criminal.”

“Your career ain’t over because you didn’t catch him, man,” Momota said from his desk, tapping things down on his computer after listening to a new client –her case was at least a five. Ouma was not interested. “Seriously, you’ll catch him later. He said so himself.”

 _“‘He said so himself’ God,_ he’s so _annoying!”_ Ouma grunted, throwing his arms and legs up in the air before letting them fall over his desk again. _“‘Is he perhaps my fated nemesis?’_ Shut up! Go fuck yourself in a corner, Moriarty! _‘We are now fated to’_ the only thing that is fated to is my _fist_ fated to meet your stupid face! _God!”_

Momota chuckled, amused. “You’re so riled up, man. It’s funny.”

“I’m not riled up, I’m _infuriated!”_ Ouma shouted. Momota laughed even louder. “Seriously, he pisses me off so much!”

“Welcome to my life,” Momota snorted, resuming the tap-tap-tap of his keyboard.

Ouma took the scarf off his face, grabbed the closest thing he blindly found, and threw it in Momota’s direction –which happened to be a small block of purple sticky notes. It hit him flatly on the head.

Momota blinked, startled, then angrily looked towards Ouma. “What the hell was _that_ for?!”

_“No Simple Plan references in my Christian household!”_

“That’s- This is not a house! You’re not even Christian!”

“Shut up! Shut up! No Simple Plan allowed in this house!”

“It was not a reference to Simple Plan! What do you even _have against Simple Plan?!”_

“They suck!”

“What the- no they don’t!”

“You only like them because of that stupid _Astronaut_ song! You’re so lame!”

“U-um, guys?”

“That’s not-”

“Dear lord, it’s barely eleven in the morning and you two are already screaming.”

Both Ouma and Momota instantly stopped bickering and looked towards the new voice, standing at the door.

Momota’s face instantly lit up. “Harumaki!”

Harukawa quietly waved at him, holding a couple of files on her hands. Ouma scoffed, leaning over to not-so-subtly whisper to Saihara. “If Momota-chan had a tail, he would start wagging it every time he saw Harukawa-chan.”

Momota instantly stopped smiling and grunted, reaching for the small block of purple sticky notes on the floor before throwing it back at Ouma. Saihara, however, managed to grab it before it could hit Ouma in the face. “I can _hear_ you, you fucking asshole! And that is not true!”

“Please, stop screaming. You’re gonna give me a headache,” Harukawa sighed, pressing the bridge of her nose. “I can already feel one coming.”

Momota hummed and opened one of the drawers of his desk, fumbling around for a moment until he found what he was looking for –an aspirin pack. “Here!” He quickly handed it to Harukawa, who took it from his hands after a moment of hesitation. “I don’t want you to have to work with a headache!”

She frowned, biting the inside of her cheeks and looking away from Momota when her cheeks started to flush. “... Thank you.”

There was a moment of silence, and then: _“Ewww,”_ Ouma said, purposely loud enough for Harukawa and Momota to hear it, before sitting down at his desk and jumping to his feet. He poked Saihara on the arm. “Things are about to get het here, Saihara-chan. Let’s go out before it taints your innocent eyes.”

Saihara blinked at him, but allowed Ouma to hold his upper arm and help him stand. “O-okay?”

“Who are you calling a _het,_ you shrimp?!”

 _“You,_ of course,” Ouma scoffed, pushing Saihara towards the office’s door. Before leaving the office, he glanced at the clock on the wall by his desk. “It’s almost noon, so Saihara-chan and I are going to have lunch together. Enjoy your heterosexual time,” he waved lazily, then stopped, considered for a moment, and squinted his eyes. “... But not _too much,_ please.”

“I’m not a het!”

“Do you wish to _die,_ Ouma?”

Ouma giggled as he pulled Saihara away from the office, pressing the elevator button and humming as it did not arrive. Saihara blinked a couple of times next to him, confused by the sudden turn of events.

“Uh,” the newbie said as the elevator arrived, stepping inside with Ouma by his side. “Where are we going?”

“To have lunch, Saihara-chan. I told you,” Ouma snorted as the elevator’s doors closed on them, pressing the first floor button. As the elevator descended, he sighed and smiled quietly. “And to give them some space.”

“Ah,” Saihara said, pulling the sleeves of his sweater to cover his hands. “I see.”

Ouma snorted. The elevator stopped, the doors opened. They both walked out of it. “But do not tell them I said that. If you do, I’ll have to kill you.”

“O-of course!” Saihara stuttered, following Ouma to the main hall. “Your secret is safe with me!”

“Ouma-kun!” Komaeda-chan the Janitor waved to them from where he was talking with Hinata Hajime from the seventh division and cleaning a window at the same time. “Saihara-kun too! Hello!”

“Hewwo, Komaeda-chan,” Ouma waved at him as they passed by. “Hewwo, Hinata-chan.”

“Got a field mission?” Hinata asked, standing by Komaeda’s side. He had his armpit holsters on; Ouma always thought it was kind of sexy, those kind of armpit holsters –except for Momota’s, of course. His were hideous.

“No, we are just going to have-” Saihara started.

“On a date~~” Ouma replied.

Saihara choked with his saliva and started coughing as Ouma smiled brightly at Hinata and Komaeda.

Komaeda clasped his hands together and smiled, dropping his broom to the floor with a loud sound as he did so. “Ah, how wonderful! See, if you two are looking for a place to go, there’s this really nice restaurant down the street that sells really good bagels! Hinata-kun and I go there all the time!”

Ouma turned around to give Hinata a smug, knowingly smile, tilting his head slightly to the side. “Is that so?”

Hinata cleared his throat and looked away, a faint blush tinting his freckled cheeks pink –Ouma always thought it was kind of cute, too, how Komaeda and Hinata had matching freckles. Sometimes he sort of wished Saihara had freckles too, so they could match as well. “Y-yes. The- u-um, the bagels are good.”

Ouma smirked and shrugged sassily. “Well if Komaeda-chan is saying it’s a good place for a _date,_ then I think I should check it out~~”

“It’s a lovely place!”

“It’s an ok place.”

“Let’s go, Saihara-chan,” Ouma said, hooking his arm with Saihara’s, pulling him away from Hinata and Komaeda. “To our lovely date at the place Komaeda-chan indicated us~”

“O-okay,” Saihara nodded, waving goodbye to Hinata and Komaeda who waved back at him. Ouma waved to the lovebirds as well, giggling childishly. 

They left the Future Foundation facility with their arms still firmly hooked together, although as soon as Hinata and Komaeda were out of sight Ouma lessened the strength with which he was grabbing Saihara's arm and just left his hand quietly at the joint of his elbow. Saihara did not say anything, but Ouma could see a faint blush on his cheeks.

As they slowly walked towards their destination, hand in arm, Saihara started: “Sooo…” 

_“Yeees?”_

“Are they dating?”

“You’ll have to be a _little_ more specific than that, Saihara-chan,” Ouma scoffed. They stopped at a red light for pedestrians. “Are you talking about Komaeda-chan and Hinata-chan or about Momota-chan and Harukawa-chan? Either way, the answer is no. But they will, probably. In the future.”

Saihara blinked, surprised. “Momota-kun and Harukawa-san are not dating?”

A beat. Ouma bit the inside of his cheeks, considered it for a moment. “They are… _Something,”_ was what he opted to answer after a moment of consideration. The light turned green, they continued to walk. “They are all over each other but it’s all bark and no bite. It’s disgusting. And annoying.”

“For how long?”

“Since we joined the agency,” Ouma replied with a quiet nod, sliding his hand down to the middle of Saihara’s arm instead of the joint of his elbow, pulling the man to a halt when a car almost hit them. They waited for a moment, then kept going. “Five to six years, I think. That they’re dancing around each other.”

“That’s… Long.”

“It is, isn’t it?” Ouma scoffed. “I have tried before. To get them together so they would stop with the annoying pining hetero bullshit, but it obviously didn’t work. Both have tried to date other people before too, but they always go back to each other. It’s a never ending circle of pure torture for me.”

Saihara snorted, letting Ouma guide him through the streets towards the restaurant Komaeda-chan the Janitor had mentioned. “Ah, I can see why you’re so annoyed with them now. It happened to me too, having two friends dancing around each other. But they actually got together a while ago.”

Ouma sighed, dreamily. “Ah, how I wish the universe was that good with me,” he then touched his forehead dramatically with his free hand, eying Saihara sideways. “If only there were someone out there willing to help end this forever agony of third-wheeling...”

Saihara returned the sideways look, and a flash of _something_ sparkled inside those golden gray eyes of his for a second. Then, he smiled quietly. “If only there were…”

They fell into a comfortable silence after that, proceeding the rest of the way to the restaurant Komaeda-chan the Janitor had mentioned in silence. They found it in no time, turning around a corner at the end of the street and then coming across the restaurant right in front of them.

It was a small, casual restaurant that Ouma had walked through a couple of times before but never actually entered, with some outdoor tables unoccupied and some indoor ones occupied. The outdoor ones had a clear view of the Future Foundation skyscraper, standing high against the blue noon skies and white fluffy clouds, and faced the busy avenue where Ouma passed every morning towards work. The prices were good, too, and they offered discounts for Future Foundation members. _And_ the place was not too crowded. All in all, it was a very nice restaurant.

They took one of the outdoor tables, far from the street and closer to the entrance of the establishment, and sat facing each other. A waitress quickly appeared to take their orders, handing them two menus and then taking a small notebook from her apron, smiling brightly and fakely at them.

“May I take your orders?” The waitress asked, smiling at Ouma for barely a second before looking towards Saihara, who was focused on his menu. She twirled a strand of her hair between her fingers. “If I may recommend something, our Tempura is really good. And I think I can arrange a discount for you~”

Ouma arched an eyebrow at the waitress, half-hidden behind his menu. If Saihara noticed the very obvious flirting, he didn’t say anything. He was way too nice for it. “What will you get, Ouma-kun?” Saihara asked, briefly looking up from his menu to Ouma.

Ouma squinted his eyes at the waitress again, then hummed and looked back to the menu, studying his options; although the prices were not too expensive, he had forgotten to swipe Momota’s wallet before leaving the office, so he would be paying for the meal with his own money, so something cheap would do.

But he was so hungry...

Sighing, he put the menu down. Looked directly at Saihara. “I think I will have a Sukiyaki. What about you, _my dear?”_

 _This_ time, Saihara noticed it. He blinked and briefly frowned at him, confused, noticing the sudden addition of a pet name that definitely was not there before, before looking towards the waitress and blinking again when acknowledgement crossed his eyes. He snorted quietly under his breath, then bit his lips to hold back a smile.

“Anything for you, _darling,”_ he replied, smirking at Ouma, and Ouma instantly felt chills running down his spine. “Sukiyaki for him and an Udon for me, please.”

The waitress quickly wrote down their orders, now slightly wide-eyed, before turning on her heels and sprinting away towards the entrance of the restaurant. Once she was out of sight, Ouma stuck his tongue out towards the door.

Saihara giggled softly. “What was that for?”

Ouma leaned backwards in his seat, stretching as if he was bored. “Did you not notice it? She flirted with you.”

“No, I did notice it,” Saihara replied with a nod, pushing his glasses backwards. “I just ignored it.”

“Yeah well, she flirted with you,” Ouma said, leaning over to rest his elbows on the table. He smirked. “But you’re on a date with _me,_ Saihara-chan. It’s _so rude_ to flirt with other people when you’re on a date with someone else!”

Saihara giggled again, and Ouma saw through the table him pulling the sleeves of his sweater down to cover his hands like he always did when he was embarrassed. “I-Is this actually a date?”

It was not, but if Saihara was gonna react that cutely to his flirting, then Ouma might as well keep going with the little white lie. “Of course it is!”

“A-ah,” Saihara said, then looked down at his own clothes. Sighed. “You should have told me beforehand. I would’ve worn some better clothes.”

Ouma blinked, surprised. He wasn’t expecting Saihara to go along with it –but again, this Saihara was the same Saihara who flirted back at him literally on their _first encounter,_ a couple of weeks ago. Besides, it wasn’t like Saihara had never flirted with him again _after_ that day, so Ouma should’ve already been used to it by now. Still, he couldn’t help but be surprised every time it happened. “Saihara-chan, you look your absolute best on literally every occasion. It’s legally impossible for you to look bad. You could show up in your pajamas at Momota-chan and Harukawa-chan’s wedding and you would still look better than them. Although I think Harukawa-chan would not be very pleased to know that you look better than her fiancé in your pajamas.”

Saihara hummed, snorting softly under his breath. “I don’t think I would be very pleased if someone in their pajamas looked better than me or my spouse during our wedding, too.”

The waitress returned with their food a moment after that, while Ouma was still giggling at what Saihara had just said, quietly apologizing for interrupting the conversation. She silently placed their orders down and smiled gently at both of them before leaving them alone. They both thanked her for the food before she left, then promptly started eating. “What does your pajamas look like, Saihara-chan? I bet they’re _nerdy,”_ Ouma asked, resuming the previous conversation.

Saihara hummed again, looking away from Ouma, taking a sip of his water. “I don’t have any.”

Ouma blinked. “You- _what?”_

“I don’t have any pajamas,” Saihara repeated, a bit lower than before, fiddling with his food. “I- uh, I sleep in my underwear.”

“Oh?” Ouma arched his eyebrows, smirking. He brought his free hand up to cover his mouth, giggling girlishly. “How scandalous, how scandalous. Be careful, people might start making indecent bets about you too, y’know. What if you become the new Iruma Miu?” He then made a pause, considered that. “Actually, no. Scratch that. That’s something I do not want to imagine.”

Saihara snorted, amused. “What’s your beef with Iruma-san?”

Ouma stared at Saihara for a moment, until the other man noticed it and stared back at him, then brought up the fake tears. He hiccuped, letting the fake tears run down his face in a way that he _knew_ would smudge his eyeliner. “Iruma-chan murdered my entire family in c-cold blood, Saihara-chan,” he started, dramatically. Saihara instantly widened his eyes. “She blackmailed me and said that if I ever t-told anyone about that, she would k-kill me too. I live in constant fear now –fear that she might break into my house to fulfill her promise one night. I cannot s-sleep anymore. My life has become a real life n-nightmare. I don’t know peace, I only know fear. I need someone to s-save me from this nightmare.”

For a moment, there was silence. Then: _“What?”_ Saihara said, breathless. “O-Ouma-kun, I- _what?”_

Ouma managed to keep the pitiful expression for three more seconds before breaking out in giggles. The tears were gone in a second. “It’s a lie, of course. Don’t worry, Saihara-chan. There’s probably someone wanting to kill me out there, but it’s not Miu-chan,” he waved a dismissing hand as Saihara only half-sighed in relief, letting out the breath he didn't realize he was holding. “There’s no beef between Miu-chan and I. She’s just… Like that. Unfortunately. Poor Kiiboy.”

Now that he was not worrying about someone potentially wanting to murder his mentor, Saihara snorted. “And you’re just… Like this.”

“What, the best detective working at the Future Foundation? Yes I am~” Ouma smiled proudly. “I am very proud, thank you.”

Saihara smiled quietly and hummed, continuing to have lunch. “Which is why you’ll catch him, right? _Moriarty.”_

Instantly, a sour expression crossed Ouma’s face. _“Ugh,_ _why_ did you have to remind me of that guy?” He grumbled, angrily shoving some food into his mouth. “But _yes,_ I will catch him. Just you wait. Just wait.”

Saihara smiled and snorted softly again, amused with the way Ouma suddenly got angry with Moriarty’s mention. “I know you will,” he said, taking a sip of his water. “I’m- _we_ are all counting on it.” 

After that, they both fell into a comfortable silence for the rest of their “date” –it was not a date, per se, as Ouma had only called it one to annoy Hinata-chan from the Seventh Division and mock the… _Whatever the hell_ he had going on with Komaeda-chan the Janitor, but if Saihara was willing to call it one, then Ouma would easily comply. It wasn’t like Saihara was _ugly_ or he wasn’t at least a _little_ attracted to the newbie, after all. A date with him would be nice.

After finishing their meal, they both walked to the cashier to pay for the food. Ouma grumbled as he took his wallet out of his trousers’ pocket, already picking up the money to pay for his food, but stopped when Saihara gently touched his hand.

When he looked at the man, Saihara gave him a small smile and winked.

“You said it yourself,” he said, handing the cashier money enough to cover both of their bills. “It’s a date.”

Ouma blinked, stunned, before giggling girlishly as Saihara paid for their food to mask the faint blush on his cheeks. As they exited the restaurant, side by side, Ouma twirled a strand of his hair between his fingers, staring at the pastel purple-dyed long tips with a smirk on his lips.

“Saihara-chan, if I didn’t know better, I would’ve thought you were courting me~” he singsang. “Are you perhaps flirting with me?”

“What?”

“Do you like boys, Saihara-chan?”

Saihara hummed and tilted his head to the side, staring at Ouma as they walked back to the agency. “Do you?”

“Nope, I’m actually straight,” Ouma easily replied, scoffing, waving a dismissing hand. He, however, hooked their arms back together like he did before. “Sorry for breaking your heart.”

 _“... Ah,”_ Saihara said, and for a moment Ouma almost felt sorry for him, because he looked somehow so incredibly disappointed. He snorted and smirked after a moment, one of his usual shit-eating grins, and opened his mouth to admit he was lying, but someone else cut him before he could.

Two streets below theirs, someone shouted: “Woah, wait! No!”

Saihara and Ouma instantly stopped in their tracks, startled by the sudden shouting, before exchanging a wary look and quickly running towards the commotion. There, two streets down the restaurant, they found a group of about fifteen people discussing something among themselves, some whispering, others shouting in fear. Some people were walking around aimlessly, hurriedly, bumping against each other without apologizing, making it difficult to stay in one place. Ouma hissed when someone bumped against him and forced him to unhook his arm from Saihara’s to avoid getting hurt, angrily looking at the person from over his shoulders, but they had already disappeared among the crowd.

He looked forward again, and hissed once more when more tall people got in his way and obscured his vision. In a moment, he had his arms hooked with Saihara’s, and then, had lost sight of the man in the crowd. Honestly, _fuck_ his miserable 5’1 height. _“Shit,_ fuck. _Saihara-chan!”_ He shouted, hoping Saihara was close enough to hear him.

“I’m here, Ouma-kun!”

He looked towards the voice. Then, he felt five slender, cold fingers sliding down his palm before enlacing themselves with his own fingers, giving them a very soft squeeze. Ouma looked down at his hand for a moment before raising his head to meet Saihara’s eyes, briefly widened behind his glasses.

“Are you okay?” Saihara asked, worried, squeezing their fingers together again.

Ouma held his stare for another second, then nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine,” he replied, squeezing Saihara’s fingers back. Saihara moved to stand by Ouma’s side, then both looked around. “What’s going on here?”

Saihara shook his head negatively. “I don’t-”

“Woah, up there! Look over there!” A man shouted, and everyone else turned to look at where he was pointing at.

Then, Ouma saw.

Moriarty.

Except, even from that distance, Ouma could _tell_ that that was _not_ Moriarty.

To begin with, that _‘Moriarty’_ copycat currently standing over the building over there had moss green and wavy hair, while original Moriarty’s hair was navy blue and straight. The copycat was also not wearing those _ridiculously tall platform boots_ that Moriarty wore, and those boots were one of his trademarks. Also, due to years of lying to people for shits and giggles and _unmasking_ other people’s lies as a detective, he had learned how to read human body language _exceptionally_ –and that person standing over the building over there wasn’t _nearly_ as comfortable as Moriarty used to be in high places.

But judging by Saihara’s expression at the moment, he was not thinking so.

Saihara had his lips pressed in a thin line and a frown on his face by the time Ouma turned to give him a dubious look, as if he were deep in thought, as if he were trying to assimilate what was happening there, but Ouma didn’t blame him. He didn’t look very happy, too, to be caught off guard during their lunch break by the criminal they were hunting down.

“It can’t be him,” Ouma said as he continued to stare at ‘Moriarty’, also frowning, trying to reassure Saihara even if just a bit. “It _can’t be him._ It doesn’t…”

...Make any sense.

Moriarty was someone of routine –all his moves from the past year were calculated and stable, and Ouma hardly thought he would suddenly change his method of working like that. If he was to change it, he would’ve done it after their first encounter, when Ouma almost caught him in that gallery (although he supposed the pattern _did_ change a bit, considering that his last strike on the Kanazawa bank did not exactly follow the seventeen-day interval that there should be between two attacks. He did strike on a prime-number day, but did not follow his original pattern). 

Something was wrong.

As people murmured and shouted among each other, grabbing their phones to record the scene unfolding right in front of them, Ouma felt his phone buzzing inside his pocket. Judging by the way Saihara absently brought his free hand to touch his own pocket, his phone was also buzzing.

Ouma looked away from the fake Moriarty to pick up his phone, checking the new messages.

_flat-earther [12:37pm]: DUDE WHERE ARE U_

_flat-earther [12:37pm]: U SEEING THIS???? MORIARTY IS STRIKING AGAIN_

_flat-earther [12:38pm]: IS SAIHARA WITH YOU??? COME BACK TO THE OFFICE_

_actual supreme leader of evil [12:39pm]: calm your tits, momota-chan_

_actual supreme leader of evil [12:39pm]: yes i’m seeing it. saihara-chan and i were having a lovely date until it was rudely interrupted!_

_actual supreme leader of evil [12:40pm]: going back to the agency now_

“Momota-chan is telling us to go back to the office,” Ouma murmured to Saihara as he typed down his reply to Momota with only one hand, refusing to let go of Saihara’s. “Let’s go, Saihara-chan.”

“Mhm,” Saihara murmured back, absently, checking his own phone screen with a frown but not answering any of the texts he received. “Let’s go.”

Ouma led the way out of the crowd, fingers still firmly laced around Saihara’s, as they made their way back to the agency. By the time they reached the building, some detectives had left their offices to peer on the commotion, while others were on their phones talking to someone else (most likely the cops). Komaeda-chan the Janitor was still in the main hall when they returned, looking uneasy while holding his broom to his chest and talking to Nanami-chan the Clerk –when he saw them, Komaeda’s eyes lit up in relief and he opened a warm smile. Smile that became even bigger and warmer as he glanced down at their joined hands.

After waving to Komaeda and Nanami, Ouma and Saihara walked into the elevator side by side. The entire time, their fingers were firmly laced together. They did not mention it.

**-x-x-x-**

To say Momota was on the edge when they returned to the office was an understatement.

“Dude!” He said once Ouma and Saihara stepped into the office, not holding hands anymore. “Dude, I’m so fucking confused! I thought you had cracked his code or some shit?! Why is he striking today?! Wasn’t the next strike supposed to be in two weeks or something?! Also, were you two _not here in the building?!_ Are you okay?!”

“Geez, Momota-chan, you sound like my mom,” Ouma grunted, breaking free of Momota’s hands on his arms. “We’re fine, we were having lunch at that restaurant down the street. We saw him when we were returning to the agency.”

Momota screeched. “You _saw_ him?!”

“Yeah, and it’s a good thing that _I_ was the one who saw him,” Ouma grunted again. “It’s not Moriarty.”

“It’s not Moriarty,” Momota promptly repeated with a nod. He then stopped for a moment, frowned, and: “What do you mean _it’s not Moriarty?!”_

“I mean it’s not him,” Ouma replied, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. “It’s a copycat. Or maybe a _fan,_ I don’t know. Beats me.”

Momota blinked. “Moriarty has _fans_ now?”

“Oh yeah, definitely,” Saihara easily joined the conversation. “There are a lot of forums on _Reddit_ where they discuss theories about him. When will his next strike be, what are his goals or what does he look like. Or even if he’s _single,”_ a giggle. “There are many things. People love him, for some reason,” as he talked, he scrolled through his phone quickly, as if he were looking for something. When he noticed the awkward silence, however, he raised his head to look at Ouma and Momota, and promptly started blushing in embarrassment when he was met with two pairs of stunned eyes. He cleared his throat. “... Sorry.”

Momota blinked again, dumbfounded. _“Reddit forums?”_

Ouma raised an iffy eyebrow. “Are _you_ a fan of Moriarty, Saihara-chan?”

“A-ah, _no._ No, I’m not,” Saihara quickly replied, curling up on himself and pushing his glasses backwards. “S-sorry if that was the impression I gave. I do find some aspects of his character interesting, but mostly I just find it curious how much people like him even though he’s a literal criminal,” he sheepishly explained himself, picking on the long sleeves of his sweater covering his fingers. “After you took the case, I started checking the forums quite often to see if I could find any hidden clues that could lead us to his true identity, since he’s not exactly _shy_ or _cautious_ and actually _shows up on the forums_ to talk to his fans sometimes, but no dice.”

“He-” It was Ouma’s turn to blink, dumbfounded. “He, _Moriarty,_ shows up. On the _forums._ To _talk to his fans,”_ he slowly repeated the words, as if he was trying to make sure he heard them correctly. Then, it infuriated him. “He fucking _shows up to talk to people?!_ As if he were not a _highly wanted criminal?!”_

“H-he does!”

“How do you even know it’s him?” Momota asked, leaning on his desk and crossing his arms over his chest. “It could be one of his _‘fans’_ pretending to be him, right?”

Saihara shook his head negatively. “No, it’s actually him. He... Um…”

“What now?”

“He… Posts selfies,” Saihara quietly replied. “He started posting them after the police spread around the sketches Yonaga-san made.”

Ouma fell silent for a moment, unable to believe what his ears just heard. “You’re kidding me. You’re lying.”

Saihara shook his head negatively again, reaching for his phone. “I’m not. I would never,” he unlocked and scrolled through it for a moment before sighing in disappointment, showing the cracked screen of his phone to Ouma. “... I wish I were joking.”

Just like he said, the phone was opened in the Reddit app, displaying a picture.

Of Moriarty, lying down on a couch, lifting part of his vest to show off part of his abs, with his thumb up, winking and smiling to the camera (although the part of his face that was usually exposed was covered by his cravat in the picture, Ouma could still see the smug, dirty smile in his _eyes)._ The picture was taken from a high angle, also showing part of his thighs and cape covering him like a blanket.

And then, as if only the photo was not enough torture, the picture was also posted with the caption: _“If I were my Detective, I’d wanna catch me too~~ <3” _

It struck Ouma dumbfounded. For the first time in his entire life, Ouma Kokichi had no words.

He just couldn’t believe his eyes –Moriarty, a highly wanted criminal, someone who had been making a fool of the police for an entire year, posted a selfie on Reddit and _flirted with him_ through the caption. For everyone to see. As if the shameless flirting from their first encounter and the video message he uploaded on the internet two days ago were not enough.

It was so inconceivable that Ouma couldn’t even get _mad._ In fact, he almost _laughed_ –he _wanted_ to laugh at the ridiculousness of this situation, wanted to scream in frustration, but all he could do was open his mouth in astonishment and stare at the photo as if he were staring at a big joke.

And the fact that his face was currently burning hot did not help _at all_ with this situation.

Oh, that fucking _prick._

Momota didn’t seem to mind the picture –in fact, he seemed to be having the time of his life screeching like a raccoon as he looked at it. “Holy shit,” he said in a high-pitched voice, howling with laughter. “Dude, holy shit. He wants to bone you. A fucking _criminal_ wants to bone you. How the _fuck_ did this happen?”

 _“Shut up,”_ Ouma hissed, breaking free from his hazy, stunned state, biting the inside of his cheeks. He pulled his scarf over to cover his mouth and luckily hide his flushing cheeks.

“Is _this_ him?” Momota asked between giggles. “I mean, is this _actually_ him?”

Ouma looked away from Momota, suddenly finding the wall next to his desk the most interesting thing in the world. He felt his cheeks burning even hotter. “... It’s him.”

Momota screeched again. Ouma hit him in the ribs. He laughed even harder.

While Momota did not stop laughing, Ouma turned to look at Saihara, hoping the man wouldn’t mention his flushed face. “Take this pic to Fujisaki-chan, if they’re still here. Ask them to track the IP Address to see if we can find his location. Oh, I’m gonna _kick_ this bastard’s ass.”

Saihara bit his lip. “It’s… Not gonna work. I already tried it.”

A beat. Ouma blinked. “You know how to track IP Addresses down?”

“Not _me,_ but I asked a friend of mine,” Saihara replied. “I thought about tracking down the IP Address the first time I saw one of his selfies, so I have been trying to ever since then. But my friend told me that Moriarty uses some sort of app to conceal his IP, so it’s useless. I’m sorry, Ouma-kun.”

 _“Shit,”_ Ouma hissed, running his fingers through his hair. He picked on the tip of the strand that stood out on the top of his head, twirling it between his fingers. “Fine. Don’t mind, Saihara-chan, you’re doing great. Way better than this useless partner of mine.”

“Hey!”

“Ah,” Saihara pushed his glasses backwards and looked away from Ouma. “T-thank you.”

Ouma hummed, then sat down behind his desk with a deep sigh. Harukawa came to their office a couple of minutes later, saying that they had caught the Moriarty copycat and they were already arrested, and that Naegi requested his presence at the police station to confirm if the Moriarty they had caught was a fake one or not. Momota and Harukawa accompanied him, while Saihara went home after the end of his internship day.

He stayed at the police station for about two hours, once again giving the police detailed information about Moriarty to refresh their memories about the criminal, before calling it a day and returning to his apartment completely exhausted.

He took a long and relaxing bath to ease his thoughts, smoked a cigarette, ate the leftovers from yesterday's dinner sitting on the kitchen counter like a cat, drank half a bottle of wine in one sit and then moved to sit in the living room, turning on the TV for some background noise as he ran over Moriarty’s files for the nth time as if he were waiting for new clues to materialize before his eyes like they did the last time. He read all the files, including the very first ones, over and over and over again until he could dictate them out loud from back to front word by word without mistake.

And it sucked.

Moriarty sucked. He sucked _so much,_ it _infuriated_ Ouma –he was just _so annoying,_ what the hell was _wrong_ with that guy?! Filming videos of himself for the news, talking to his fans as if he were a famous actor or some shit, telling Ouma _where_ and _when_ his next strike would be just to strike _somewhere else._ That fucking _business card_ that rested heavily in Ouma’s cardigan pocket. Posting _selfies_ on Reddit forums like he was not a highly wanted criminal.

Everything about Moriarty just felt so fucking _ridiculous._ It was almost like he was one big joke –he was a _criminal,_ for fuck’s sake. He shouldn’t be _that_ smug, _that_ overconfident; no matter how good he was at what he did, karma was bound to come collect his debt someday. He was bound to make a mistake one day, to slip and give himself away, to fall from grace.

And when that day came, Ouma would be watching the fall sitting on the front seat, enjoying each and every second of it.

But while that sweet, sweet day did not arrive, he had to distract himself by reading Moriarty’s files and trying to find new clues that might lead to his true identity. He blinked away the glassy expression in his eyes and cleared his throat, taking a sip from his wine directly from the bottle before adjusting the files in his hands to read over them once more.

As he read over the files and thought about how much he hated the dude, Ouma’s mind absently returned to that awful picture of his abs, and his face immediately started to heat up.

“No!” He angrily shouted at the empty apartment, frustrated. “Stop, gay thoughts! Not _that_ guy!”

Because no matter how much he disliked the guy, there was no denying it. Moriarty was hot –Ouma had _eyes,_ after all. He was no hypocrite. He could recognize a hot guy when he saw one, and Moriarty definitely fit that bill whether he liked it or not; his height, the long hair, the mysterious aura, the confident posture and the sexy smile, the… Uh, the _thighs._ The intense eyes. The deep voice. His _intellect._

A criminal had _no right_ to be that sexy. It felt illegal.

But again, nothing about Moriarty was legal (once again, he was a _criminal),_ so he might as well add ‘being sexy’ to his endless list of illegalities.

(His outfit was still ridiculous, though. _And_ he was a huge pain in the ass. _And_ Ouma hated his guts. _And_ he wanted to catch him and get rid of that guy as soon as possible.)

Cursing his own traitorous mind and cringing at himself for having gay thoughts about the enemy, Ouma finished the rest of his wine, threw Moriarty’s files aside and turned up the volume of the TV, switching between channels for something interesting to watch. Once he found something worthwhile and not so boring to watch, he rested his feet on the coffee table while chewing a strawberry pencil, absently watching the TV show he picked while making a grimace because of the weird taste the strawberry pencil had when mixed with wine. He managed to watch the show for about three minutes before his mind started to, of course, unconsciously travel back to Moriarty.

Did the thief see the copycat from this morning?

As far as he knew, the news hadn’t reported a new video from him after the incident with the copycat, so he either hadn't seen it yet, or didn't care enough to make a video regarding it.

…

Actually, no. Scratch that. He definitely hadn’t seen it yet, because there was no way in hell that _Moriarty_ and his attention whore ass wouldn’t make a video regarding someone pretending to be him.

Sighing, Ouma reached for his phone that was thrown somewhere to his right when he threw himself on his couch, unlocking it to search up the news just to see if Moriarty has said something about the episode from earlier.

Instead, he was met with a text from Saihara from almost an hour ago.

_saihara-chan my beloved <3 [10:49pm]: Ouma-kun, I know that photo of Moriarty made you mad, and I know that it’s already late, but I really think you should check out Moriarty’s page on Reddit. Maybe you’ll find something we missed? I don’t know. You’re way smarter than the rest of us. _

_actual supreme leader of evil [11:32pm]: why are you still awake, saihara-chan? shouldn’t the sun have set at 6pm~~?_

_actual supreme leader of evil [11:33pm]: ugh fiiiine, i will check out that asshole’s page_

_actual supreme leader of evil [11:34pm]: but only because you asked me to~~_

He sighed again, then downloaded the Reddit app after a minute or so of silently staring at his living room’s ceiling as if he was expecting it to give him all the answers to all his questions. He made an account (with the username ultimatemoriartyhater), took his time to find the perfect picture for his profile picture (a photo of Momota during New Year’s Eve last year, drunk as fuck, sprawled shirtless on his couch wearing one of Harukawa’s bras, with one of his underwears on his head like a hat. His freckles were connected by a permanent marker, so his face was entirely scrawled with black ink. Ouma had used that photo as blackmail material more than once, and it always worked), and easily found the forums Saihara was talking about.

Surely, Moriarty did not care _at all_ about exposure or the risk of getting caught by the police.

His Reddit page, named _SexyPhantomThiefMoriarty,_ contained numerous selfies of himself taken in several different locations –on a couch, a bed, a hotel room, a balcony, a bathroom. The _rooftop of the Kanazawa bank,_ dated two days ago. Almost every photo showed his face, but not enough for one to identify his true identity, since he always wore his mask and something always covered the exposed part of his face in the photos; his cravat, his hat, his cape, some papers, fire, but mostly his hands. Some of his selfies had two other people with him, too _–Lune_ and _Midori,_ Ouma easily recognized the other two “Garridebs”, as they called themselves. They were a trio, Moriarty, Lune and Midori, although Moriarty worked alone while Lune and Midori partnered and usually worked as distractions for Moriarty to strike. The photos were also always posted _after_ he striked, so the police couldn’t track him down through the selfies.

Moriarty also liked to comment on his fans’ posts, thanking their support and love, and joined quite a lot of discourse about his character. If Ouma was not currently chasing the guy, and if Moriarty was someone else at all, he would’ve thought that it was sort of _funny_ –Moriarty seemed to be _really_ passionate about defending himself, as he wrote literal _essays_ under hater’s comments _(haters,_ god. The dude had actual _haters_ as if he were a popstar or something).

But the thing that actually caught his attention, Ouma quickly noticed, was that despite the different poses and locations, all of Moriarty’s selfies had one thing in common.

They all mentioned him in the captions.

Moriarty, standing on a balcony with the Cosmo Clock 21 Ferris Wheel visible in the distance, making a peace sign with his fingers and winking at the camera: _Wishing my detective was here with me <3 _

Moriarty, on the rooftop of the Kanazawa bank, with his tongue out and his thumb up, pointing his right thumb towards the commotion in the distance where police helicopters surrounded the Kanagawa bank: _He’s there!_

Moriarty, in a kitchen, standing in front of a stove holding a spatula while making a peace sign with his fingers, smirking to the camera. The photo was taken from a high angle, and he was _shirtless_ –who the fuck cooked _shirtless?!: Wondering what Mr. Detective’s favorite food is :/_

That one picture from earlier, of Moriarty lying on a couch lifting his vest him his thumb winking at the camera again: _If I were my detective, I’d wanna catch me too~~ <3 _

He was so annoying that it was almost _comical._

“Does this dude only know how to pose for photos making peace signs and thumbs up?” Ouma murmured as he scrolled through Moriarty’s page, angrily biting his lips every time he found a new photo mentioning him in the captions. He scrolled all the way down to the first photo posted, back at the day the police started spreading around copies of Yonaga’s sketches, then scrolled all the way back up, sighing in annoyance –if Momota were there, he would say that Ouma was getting a taste of his own medicine, since _he_ was usually the one to annoy the shit out of people, and not the other way around.

Which he figured, in a way, it was true.

Because whether he liked it or not, Ouma would have to admit (but only reluctantly), Moriarty was good –anyone who could make _Ouma Kokichi_ annoyed was someone worthy of respect.

But how smug would Moriarty be if he started to annoy him back, he wondered?

Humming, Ouma switched the channels on the TV until he found the news channel, where he knew they would be reporting the evening news. He giggled and crossed his feet on the coffee table, eating his sweets while waiting for anything Moriarty-related to show up.

If Moriarty wanted to play, then he might as well play with him. After all, what fun does a game in which only one player plays have?

He saw the perfect opportunity when the news started displaying the copycat’s strike from earlier, putting a picture of Moriarty next to it on the screen.

Ouma quickly grabbed his phone and took a picture of the TV, his middle finger in front of Moriarty’s face.

He uploaded the picture on his Reddit page, captioning it with “fuck Moriarty, all my homies hate Moriarty” and posting it on the Moriarty forum. Humming to himself again, he waited for the chaos to ensue with a small smirk on his lips.

Two could play this game.

  
**-x-**

****Five minutes.

It took five minutes for someone to notice it.

_flat-earther [11:58]: [one link attached] THIS U?_

_flat-earther [11:58]: I RECOGNIZE THE PORTRAITS ON THE TV PANEL_

_flat-earther [11:59]: ALSO WHAT THE FUCK IS UR PROFILE PIC U FUKCING DICK_

Ouma snorted, ignoring the texts but clicking the link despite knowing exactly where it would lead to. He was taken to his Reddit page, where his photo rested with twenty comments already from people agreeing with him or calling him words; he liked all the comments and replied to most of them, especially the bad ones, with cocky things.

But the comment that got his attention, of course, was one of the newest ones, posted by username “SexyPhantomThiefMoriarty”, two minutes ago.

_SexyPhantomThiefMoriarty: Ah, my detective is here! What a pleasant surprise!_

Ouma disliked the comment and replied: _fuck off._

He snorted again, already feeling the annoyance popping out in his veins, clicking Moriarty’s page to see if the smug bastard had posted something about it.

And gasping in surprise when he was met with a new photo.

Except this time it wasn’t a selfie, but a simple plain black picture containing nothing but a few words written in _Comic Sans_ in the middle of it.  
  


_Let’s play a game, detective ;)_

_There is a secret message in every selfie I've posted so far. Can you find them in time?_

_The game is on, and the clock is ticking.  
_ _Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock.  
  
_

Ouma was sitting straight on his couch in a second.

Yes. _Yes!_

Oh, _now_ they were talking.

Rubbing his hands together, Ouma allowed an eager smile to form on his lips, scrolling all the way back to Moriarty’s first uploaded photos to start from the beginning. He sat cross-legged and reached for the small notepad and a pen he kept on his coffee table, leaving them by his side, opening the first posted photo.

It was a simple selfie of Moriarty with his thumb up, posted the same day the police started spreading around copies of his composite sketch, with an open book covering the bottom of his face. He was sitting on a couch, with a slight frown, and not much was shown in the photo besides the thief himself, the book covering part of his face, part of the couch, the white wall behind him and part of the next room by his left side. The pic was captioned _“I heard my detective gossiped about me! That’s so mean, detective, I don’t like gossip! : <” _

The second photo was posted a day later, during the sunset, and displayed Moriarty standing on a balcony with the sun tinting the exposed parts of his pale skin golden. His amethyst eyes looked like they were made of glass, pale and crystal-clear, reflecting the orange sun rays like a mirror. He was making a peace sign with his fingers, hand covering the bottom part of his face again, eyes half-lidded as he clearly smiled to the camera despite having his mouth hidden. In the distance, the sun was setting behind the tall skyscrapers of Yokohama. The photo was captioned: _“Beautiful sunset. Not as beautiful as my detective, however~~”_

(Ouma felt his face heating up a little with this one –both by the caption, and by how surprisingly pleasant Moriarty looked with the sunset shining on his face like that. Which was sort of ironic, since nothing about Moriarty was pleasant.)

Next photo showed the thief lying on a bed, under the covers, as if he were preparing to sleep, but he still had his full attire on so there was nothing inappropriate about the photo besides the giant asshole on display. Once again, he was posing with his thumb up and winking at the camera, and not much could be seen in the picture besides the thief himself and the white covers of the bed, a few books resting on the headboard, a clock and the huge window showing the dark night skies and the city lights. Judging by the fancy-looking covers and curtains, he was in a hotel. The picture had _“it’s so cold today! I kind of wish my detective was here with me to warm me up with his cute little arms <3” _ as the caption.

The next one was the photo of Moriarty cooking shirtless, making a peace sign with his fingers while holding the spatula, smirking and winking at the camera. Despite the implication, the photo was not, actually, _that_ inappropriate –although he was shirtless, the thief still had his cape draped over his shoulders and his long navy-blue hair was pulled over to fall over his front in the photo, covering most of his torso and abs; he was _still_ shirtless, though. The pic, once again, didn’t show much besides the thief, the stove with a single pot with ramen inside of it, some books on the counter next to the stove and a clock showing the time (the pic was taken around noon, according to it). It was captioned _“wondering what Mr. Detective’s favorite food is :/”._

The following picture was a picture of Moriarty posing with his own photo being displayed on a TV, on the midday news, pointing to the photo with his thumb. He used an emoji to cover the bottom part of his face, but Ouma could tell that he was smiling. The picture had the caption _“he did that! My detective made me famous! :D”._

After this one, came the one where he was standing at the balcony with the Cosmo Clock 21 Ferris wheel in the distance, making a peace sign with his fingers again. He was winking at the camera, covering half of his face with his fingers. The caption was _“wishing my detective was here with me <3”. _

The list went on and on and on and, honestly, Ouma did not find anything worth noticing this time except for the fact that all of the captions mentioned him and Moriarty apparently only knew how to pose for photos making thumbs up and peace signs. There were no secret riddles hidden somewhere in the photos, or secret codes for him to decode, or any clue to where or when his next attack would be (following the original pattern with the prime numbers, after the attack on the art gallery, the next hit _should be_ on October 6th, thirteen days after that, but Moriarty had already broken his routine by attacking the Kanazawa bank only a week later when he should’ve waited thirteen days, so Ouma hardly thought he would continue with this pattern. Not after almost being caught).

Grunting in frustration, Ouma briefly looked away from his phone to the TV, still on the news channel but now reporting some scandal involving two celebrities having an affair or whatever, chewing on his lips with his eyes glassy and unfocused. Outside his apartment, down the street, some cars honked and some people talked and laughed loudly despite the late hour, which made it even more difficult to concentrate. He let out another long, frustrated grunt, resting his head on the back of the couch and staring at the ceiling above him –it was sort of hard to think all by himself when all he had to work on was some cryptic message written in _Comic Sans._

If only Saihara-chan were there…

Sighing, he looked back at his phone, already scrolling back to the first photo again. He considered calling Saihara, even Momota, to help him, but it was already too late at night for that and he doubted either of them would still be awake (Saihara, maybe, since those deep eye bags of his didn’t suddenly appear all by themselves). Besides, he had no help solving the first riddle, the one about the timestamps, so why would he need any now?

On top of that, he was _Ouma fucking Kokichi,_ the best detective working for the Future Foundation Detective Agency. If _anyone_ could solve his riddles, it was him. If _anyone_ was gonna catch Moriarty, it would be him.

So he cracked his aching neck, cleared his throat, adjusted his body on the couch and started again.

… And once again, found nothing.

He downloaded all the photos, tried to look at the HTML, but computation was not really his area so he quickly gave up after five minutes or so and prayed for the message not to be hidden there. He increased and decreased the contrast and the lightning of the photos to see if something would pop up, too, but once again he was met with a dead end.

Damn it.

So Moriarty thought his last riddles were way too easy to solve, uh?

Thinking about it through a certain point of view, it did make sense –Moriarty _was_ a criminal, after all. No matter how smug he was, how confident he was, his top priority would always be himself; he wouldn’t risk being caught only to fuck with someone for shits and giggles. No game in the world was worth the risk of being locked in jail for the rest of his life, no matter how fun and exciting the game was.

But on the other hand, it also didn’t make sense for Moriarty to challenge him with something he knew he wouldn’t be able to solve –once again, playing a game all by yourself was boring and no fun at all, especially a game where you should be playing against someone else. If Moriarty was giving him fake clues to mislead him, then this game was not fair and it was _boring, boring,_ so utterly _boring._ Ouma did not want to keep playing a game where the other part didn’t play fair, because if he was entertaining Moriarty, then he _at least_ expected the thief to entertain him back. He shouldn’t have all the fun! That should be their unspoken deal, shouldn’t it? A fun game for both sides?

But Ouma knew that Moriarty was smarter than that. _His thief_ would never play dirty like that –if he said there was a hidden clue in the photos, then there _was_ a hidden clue there somewhere. He just had to find them in time.

The clock was ticking, and Ouma’s time was running thin.

…

The… Clock…?

…Ah.

_Ah!_

There was a clock in more than one picture, was there not?

Gasping, Ouma rolled down to the first picture posted, letting out a soft _“yes!”_ when he confirmed that yes, there was a clock in the photo –a wall clock slightly blurred in the background of the image, only clear enough for Ouma to distinguish where the needles were pointing to: 11 and 12. Five to noon, or five to midnight.

Moving to the next photo, he couldn’t help but gasping in surprise again when he was met with another clock –a small wrist watch attached to Moriarty’s left wrist, showing the same time from the other one: 11 and 12. Ouma figured the watch was purposely messed with, since the picture was obviously taken during sunset. How did he not notice it before?

He moved to the next one and, once again, there was a clock somewhere in the picture showing the exact same time waiting for him to find it. The next one, too. And the next one, and the one after that too.

There was no mistake. They had a time range to work with.

But _when_ and _where?_

Humming to himself and chewing on his lips, Ouma wrote down the time range on his notepad and rolled back to the first uploaded picture, figuring that if the time was displayed then some other clues might be displayed as well. He minutely examined the picture, now mindful of the tiny details, trying to see if he could find a hidden clue to where and when Moriarty’s next strike would be –if all the pictures contained a clock somewhere with the exact same time displayed in all of them, then there should probably be more clues to work with, yes? Something that could lead him to the next strike; a pamphlet, a hidden symbol somewhere, maybe an object, a painting.

… A book with the label of the _National Library of Collections on the Tragedy,_ present in all but one of the photos.

The sight of the book sent chills running down Ouma’s spine. He had been to the library a couple of times before, as he and Momota played an important role in preventing the Tragedy a few years ago, and the library _sort of_ _belonged_ to the Future Foundation. Although Ouma wouldn’t consider himself a big fan of them, it was a really nice library –a fancy seven-story building in an affluent part of the city with a couple more larger and smaller buildings around, next to some local business and busy avenues. It had easy access and even easier egress, and the fact that the library was not only located in a wealthy part of the city, but also contained some valuable items from the Tragedy has always been something to worry about, in Ouma’s opinion. He always thought it was kind of stupid to keep valuable items in a _library,_ rathar than in a museum.

But even so, even if the library was an easy target, Moriarty wouldn’t. He wouldn’t, would he? Strike a place that belonged to the detective agency that was chasing him? That was _way too risky,_ even for someone as smart as Moriarty.

But if this clue was the same one as the clock, then there was no mistake. The library was the target –all the pictures showed the book with the library's label, and the only one that _did not_ showed the library _itself_ (it could be seen in the distance, in the photo of Moriarty standing on the balcony). But even if the hidden clues were _indeed_ correct, even if he _did target_ the library, then _when?_ _When_ would the strike be? Ouma had a time range and a place to work on, but not a date.

Unless…

Unless there was something else that he missed in the photos and that he shouldn’t be missing.

He checked the photos _again,_ afraid he was gonna dream about Moriarty that night from staring at his photos so much, but the only thing he noticed, once again, was the fact that Moriarty apparently only knew how to pose for photos making thumbs up and-

…

Wait.

Was this really what he was doing?

Frowning, Ouma checked the thief’s hands in the pics –they looked like normal peace signs and thumbs up, casual poses for photos, poses that even Ouma himself was fond of, but even someone who was socially awkward changed poses sometimes to take pictures. Moriarty was _not_ someone socially awkward. When did Moriarty do something without any hidden meaning behind his actions? As far as Ouma knew, never.

And it wasn’t only that.

Like the dates with the prime numbers, there was also a pattern in the photos.

 _Oh,_ the routine _bastard._

Thumb up, peace sign, thumb up, peace sign, thumb up, peace sign. It was a fixed pattern –he never repeated the poses twice in a row, it was always a steady rhythm. Thumb up, peace sign, thumb up, peace sign, as if he were passing a message through his hands. How did Ouma not notice it before?

And if he were passing a message through his hands…

Does this mean that his gestures were not simple poses, but actually sign language?

Ouma hummed and bit the tip of his left thumb, reaching for his phone to search sign language on Google –he had taken sign language classes back in high school, so he knew the peace sign one actually meant ‘two’, but that was where his knowledge of sign language ended. He had spent most of his time in high school fucking around with his friends instead of studying, so he didn’t remember much about his classes.

Searching up numbers in sign language on Google, he easily found countless tutorials on how to make letters and numbers, read them and learn the language, but he was only interested in what the symbols meant. He quickly clicked in one of the pictures that showed up on images and looked for the thumb up symbol, finding it in no time. It meant ten.

Ten and two. Those were the numbers that Moriarty was constantly doing secretly in his photos. Ten and two.

Ten and... Two?

_October 2nd?!_

_“What?!”_ Ouma gasped, biting the tip of his thumb slightly too hard in surprise and breaking the skin. _“Ah, fuck,”_ he hissed, eyeing his finger for a moment before sticking it in his mouth as it started to bleed, widening his eyes back at his phone because of what he just found out.

October 2nd, National Library of Collections on the Tragedy, around midday.

_Tomorrow._

He instantly dialed Momota’s number, regardless of the fact that it was almost one in the morning. He picked up on the fourth ring, sounding groggy. _“‘Ma? ‘S that you?”_

 _“Tomorrow,”_ Ouma said, a little breathless, his heart beating fast inside his chest. “The next strike is _tomorrow,_ at the Future Foundation Library.”

A beat. _“Wha?”_

Ouma closed his eyes, inhaled deeply, and then shouted: _“Wake up, Momota-chan!”_

 _“Woah!”_ Momota gasped into the phone, now sounding more awake. _“Okay, I’m awake! Don’t shout!”_

“Did you hear me?”

 _“Yes, fuck, how couldn’t I?”_ Momota grumbled. There was a muffled shuffle in the call, probably Momota turning around in the covers. _“What time is it?”_

Ouma eyed the TV. “One.”

 _“Fuck,”_ he grumbled again, then sighed. _“Do you know what time the attack will take place?”_

“Around midday, probably. Since it’s already past midnight,” Ouma replied, making a grimace when he removed his wounded thumb from his mouth. The bleeding had stopped, but it still ached a bit. “Actually, fuck, it’s not even _tomorrow._ It’s _today.”_

_“Are you sure?”_

“Yes.”

 _“Okay, shit,”_ Momota sighed and then yawned on the other end of the call. _“Are you home?”_ Ouma hummed in agreement. _“Want me to come over to discuss a plan?”_

“No need,” Ouma answered with a shrug, even though Momota couldn’t see him. “Just call your hitman girlfriend or whatever and let her know about the attack so we can be ready. We can come up with a plan tomorrow. This time, we’ll catch him.”

 _“Yeah, I’m gonna send a text to Kirigiri-san too,”_ Momota murmured. Judging by the muffled sound on the other end of the call, he had laid down again. _“We’ll talk later, then. G’night, Ouma. It’s late, go to sleep.”_

“You’re not my mom!” Ouma said, then snorted under his breath. “Night, Momota-chan.”

Momota replied with a ‘good night’ again, then ended the call. Ouma threw his phone aside and took a deep breath, running his fingers through his hair while staring at his ceiling, his heart still beating like crazy inside his chest. The adrenaline had decreased a bit, but it was still burning hot in his veins.

This time, he would catch him. He would catch Moriarty.

And he would win this game.  
  


* * *

  
Once in a lifetime, Momota had arrived in time to work.

When Ouma arrived at the agency, an hour earlier than usual, he found Momota already there in their office, tapping things down on his computer with a large cup of coffee by his side. He was also on the phone, so when Ouma stepped into the office he just waved at him to say hello.

Ouma ignored his wave and walked to his desk to grab his notebook and a pen before going to Momota’s desk, climbing over it and sitting cross-legged over the man’s open notebooks, raising two impatient eyebrows at his partner when Momota shot him an exasperated look. Momota said a few more things on the phone before ending the call, then hissed at Ouma.

“What do you _think_ you’re doing?! Get off!” He tried to _shoo_ Ouma with his hands, but Ouma didn’t mind him. He just opened his notebook in the first clean page he found.

“So, I spent the night thinking,” Ouma said, scribbling things down in his notebook. He stopped for a moment, stole and took a sip of Momota’s coffee without making a grimace despite the bitter taste because he needed it, then resumed scribbling. “And I think he’s not gonna use the helicopter this time.”

Momota stopped, slightly widening his eyes. He didn’t even complain about him stealing his coffee. “What?”

Ouma took another sip of it, this time not being able to mask the grimace. “One: the library is in a wealthy part of the city, and wealthy people are usually big assholes. They will complain about the loud noise and call the police, and the last thing Moriarty wants is the police after him. He wants _me_ and only _me_ after him,” a sneer and a pause, two more long sips of Momota’s coffee. He finished it before proceeding: _“Two:_ the library is not as tall as the buildings he previously attacked that needed the helicopter to escape, so the trees around the building would be a problem for him if he decided to use it. Also, there’s a highway close to the library and many escape routes around it, so it’s more likely that he uses a getaway car this time. Now please go and get me another coffee without sugar because I spent the night awake thinking about a plan and didn’t sleep for a second.”

“You spent the _night awake?!”_

 _“Please,_ don’t act like you didn’t do the same,” Ouma scoffed, rolling his eyes, pointing at Momota’s also obvious eye bags. Momota cursed under his breath. “Go get me a coffee. Black. No sugar.”

Momota cursed again, but stood with a sigh and ran his fingers through his hair –hair that was down, today, free of the usual hairstyle with tonnes of hairspray. Apparently, he ran to the agency without worrying about styling his hair that morning. Which Ouma could relate to, since his hair was also down that morning, without the purple ribbon tying half of it up.

“You’re spending way too much time with Saihara,” Momota sighed again, but moved to get what Ouma asked him anyway. Ouma watched Momota until he left the office, then promptly resumed the doodling he was making.

In a way, he supposed that was true –Ouma _was_ spending a lot of time with Saihara lately, but he figured it was because they _worked_ together and he was assigned to take care of the newbie. Saihara had been working for the agency for about a month now, and had one more to complete before their bosses decided whether to hire him or not, so of course they spent a lot of time together. A _lot._ But Momota also spent a lot of time with Saihara (to the point Ouma was even sort of jealous sometimes, because they grew close quite quickly. Saihara even got some of Momota’s stupid habits, like rubbing his chin with his thumb and index finger even though there was no ugly goatee there to scratch. Ouma wouldn’t be surprised if one day he came to the agency and Momota and Saihara had a secret _‘bros’_ handshake, matching friendship bracelets and were on a first name basis), so there was no secret meaning behind that. Saihara and Ouma spent time together, yes, and sometimes they went on _friendship dates_ to give Momota and Harukawa some hetero time, _yes,_ but that was only that. Friendship. They were… Friends.

Friends…

Saihara was really nice.

Maybe it was because Ouma was so used to getting on people’s nerves that when he found someone genuinely good and willing to spend time with him he was surprised, but Saihara was really nice. Really, really nice. He always listened to what Ouma had to say, and he always tried to humor him even when he had no idea what Ouma was talking about. He bought him food and candy and his favorite grape soda from the vending machine two floors below theirs, and he always asked for help on his tasks when he didn’t understand something. He was never bothered or upset by Ouma’s antics, and was not scared of his ‘demon face’, as Momota kindly called it; in fact, he thought it was sort of funny. He always laughed at his jokes, even the bad ones, and he was always deeply immersed in Ouma’s stories about his _“secret evil organization with more than ten thousand members”;_ he was curious, and he was smart, and he asked questions and wanted to know more about the pawns of the evil supreme leader Ouma Kokichi. Saihara didn’t call out his lies, not even the obvious ones, and despite being shy he always flirted back when Ouma flirted with him. He held his hand and he always sat by his side and they always walked with their arms hooked together and he always made him company when Momota and Harukawa were dancing around each other so he wouldn’t feel like he was third-wheeling. He was all soft smiles and sweet giggles, fond looks and quiet gestures.

Lovely. Saihara Shuichi was lovely.

It was difficult not to feel attracted to him. Weird would it be if he _didn’t_ feel attracted to the detective trainee and his soft golden-grayish eyes, his sweet smile, his soothing voice. The softness of those hands that were often wrapped around Ouma’s own.

Yeah, he liked Saihara a lot.

(As _friends,_ of course. Because that’s what they were: _friends._ Liking Saihara romantically only because he was nice to him would be stupid and make him look like a needy high schooler who never experienced affection before, and Ouma was far from being a teenager –he was _twenty-six,_ for fucks’ sake. Adults didn’t have _crushes._ He did acknowledge that Saihara was really pretty, yes, and sometimes he flushed a little when Saihara flirted back with him, _yes,_ but honestly, who wouldn’t? What he felt was not a _crush;_ it was a natural reaction of the stupid humans brains to _kindness._

_..._

_… But maybe, just maybe…)_

He was snapped back to reality by Momota’s return, placing a brand new cup of burning hot coffee in front of Ouma just like he asked him to. He had another cup for himself, and he sat back in his chair with a loud sigh, slurping his burning hot coffee loudly.

“Right,” Momota said, putting down his coffee. “Tell me your plan.”

Ouma blinked at him, held his stare for a second and took a sip of his own coffee –burning hot, black, bitter. _Terrible._ Just how he needed it. “Right. So we’re doing it like this.”

He told Momota about his plan: he would get to the library earlier and wait for Moriarty there, hidden, until the thief showed himself, since the last time waiting outside the building didn’t work. He would try to talk him into returning the stolen goods and when it didn’t work _(when,_ not _if,_ because he was sure Moriarty wouldn’t listen to him) he would call the cops in to get him. In case this plan didn’t work and the thief managed to escape, he would have Momota waiting outside in a getaway car for them to chase Moriarty and his henchman once they tried to run. Then, they would try to lead them to the nearest highway to the library, which would already be blocked by then, to corner them and finally, _finally_ arrest them.

It was not a foolproof plan, of course, but it was better thought out than their previous one and there was a higher chance of success now that they knew Moriarty a little better. This time, _this time,_ he would get Moriarty, and _he_ would be the one laughing at the end of the day.

It was really a shame Saihara would not be there to see this.

(Well, guess he would have a reason to brag to him tomorrow. Maybe fish some compliments from his favorite newbie detective here or there…)

When the time to go to the library came, Ouma left the office with Momota by his side and Harukawa walking a few steps behind them (she came to their office to deliver some paperwork and stayed a bit to discuss the plan with them again, but she would not be accompanying them today because she had another mission to take care of with Kamukura), stopped briefly by their bosses’ office to talk to them (all the three of them were there today, for once, since Togami and Naegi usually were off to Towa City), then stopped by Hanamura’s restaurant for some snacks for them to eat while they waited for Moriarty to show up. Then, they took one of the agency’s private cars with Togami’s permission and proceeded to the library with two police cars discreetly following them behind for assistance.

The library perimeter was, of course, already blocked by the time they arrived, but Ouma could see a few people walking in and out. There were two more police cars there, parked around the library and blocking the main road, with some cops in and out of the cars.

Sighing, Ouma left the car, then leaned on the window to talk to Momota. “Wait here. Keep your communication earpiece on and don’t remove it not even to _eat._ When I call, you _come,_ yes?”

Momota yawned, bored. He rested his elbow on the open window. _“Yes,_ Ted Templeton.”

Ouma hissed, finger-flickering Momota hard in the ear. _“Don’t test me,_ bitch. I _will_ steal your kneecaps.”

“Can you even reach them?”

“Oh, wanna pay to see?”

“Bring it. Just lemme grab a magnifying glass first.”

“One day, Momota-chan. One day I will kick your ass and then you’ll see. One day I will shove your ugly galaxy-themed crocs up your ass and then you’ll start respecting me.”

“Yeah, not gonna happen,” Momota rolled his eyes. “How do you know who Ted Templeton is, anyway?”

“How do _you_ know who he is?”

“I watched the movie, of course. Souda called Kuzuryuu _‘boss baby’_ for months after the movie was released.”

“Fair. Also, y’know, I still don’t know how Souda-chan is still alive.”

“Yeah, me neither. Beats me.”

“Um, excuse me?” 

Both Ouma and Momota turned to look at the police officer who approached them and interrupted their bantering. 

“Who’s the detective Ouma?”

Ouma smiled and waved lazily. “That would be me~”

The police officer nodded. “We prepared a room for you on the fifth floor. Follow me, please.”

“Lead the way~” Ouma singsang, and the officer turned on his heels to go to the library. Ouma promptly followed him, but not before finger-flickering Momota hard in the ear again and calling him a bitch.

He was taken to the fifth floor, just like the officer said, where the articles about the Tragedy were originally displayed. Now, of course, there were none. The agency had removed everything precious and important from the floor so the thief couldn’t steal anything and luckily give up, but Ouma knew him better. He wasn’t just gonna give up, he was no quitter –if Moriarty wanted to steal something, then he _would_ steal something, no matter how apparently insignificant the thing was. He wouldn’t be considered a _phantom thief_ if he didn’t.

Ouma was familiarized with that floor, so he knew all the escape routes around there –the balconies by the books section, already locked and secured. The stairs up to the sixth floor, the stairs down to the fourth one, and the elevators. The toilets, of course, with the windows now locked from the outside. The main door, originally closed, was opened only for Ouma to walk through. There was a chair for Ouma to sit on behind some large pillars, hidden from view.

“I have my men scattered all around the library, but they’re all hidden, so if you need anything, just ask through your communication earpiece. You and your partner are directly connected to each other and you can hear us all the time, but you’ll have to manually click your earpiece for us to hear _you,”_ the officer informed Ouma once he stepped into the antiques’ room, stopping by the door. “We’ll be ready to assist you.”

“Mhm, thank you,” Ouma replied, although he didn’t turn to look at the officer. He was still looking around the room, frowning at how weird all those empty pedestals looked without the antiques on display. He heard the officer closing the door to the room, and then he was left alone.

He sighed, loudly, before starting to walk around the room to get his surroundings. Although he was familiarized with the floor and consequently to this room, he still had some time to kill before Moriarty decided to show up, so an additional surveying around the room wouldn’t be a bad idea.

He managed two steps before something (or rather, _someone)_ interrupted him.

“I knew you could do it.”

Ouma _did not_ startle (he _did not),_ but he did gasp in surprise when he heard the voice. He quickly turned his head towards it, almost snapping it with how fast he turned, hand unconsciously reaching for his gun attached to his leg.

Moriarty was resting lazily against the wall next to the door, arms crossed over his chest, head slightly tilted to the side, smirking. “I must admit, I thought you wouldn’t be able to solve the puzzle in time. But you never disappoint, detective.”

Why was Moriarty there? _Why was Moriarty there?!_ It was barely eleven in the morning! He shouldn’t show up until noon! They were supposed to get _him_ by surprise, not the other way around!

Fuck, that was _not_ how this plan was supposed to go!

Taking in a deep breath, Ouma forced himself to remain calm. Play his game, don’t freak out. _Beat him_ at his own game.

He quietly cleared his throat, forced his heartbeat to calm down after the scare, and turned on his heels to properly face the thief with the most bored face he managed to make. He shrugged, putting the hand hovering his gun back inside his cardigan pocket. “It wasn’t that difficult to solve. I would rate it a four out of ten.” He lied. That puzzle was at least an eight.

Moriarty snorted, amused. “Guess I’ll have to try harder, then.”

“Don’t bother,” Ouma said. “You’re not as good as you think you are. If you were, you wouldn’t have shown up here today. Look around, Moriarty. You _lost.”_

“Is that so?” Moriarty smirked, eyes locked with Ouma’s, reaching for something inside his cape without breaking eye contact. His smirk became even more smug as he slowly took a small dagger from inside his pocket and showed it to Ouma.

Ouma’s breath instantly hitched in his throat. He recognized that dagger.

He had seen it a couple of times before, there in the library, but two floors up, as it was not something that was exposed in the _Tragedy_ exhibition. It was something that did not belong to the collection.

Stupid. Honestly, they were all so _stupid,_ the police and the Future Foundation and Ouma himself. So utterly _stupid._

Moriarty _knew_ Ouma would solve his little puzzle, and he _knew_ he would alert the Future Foundation about it. He knew the agency would lock the library and remove everything valuable regarding the Tragedy from there, because that was what they would think he was aiming to, but it was not. His true goal was the centenary dagger dated from almost two hundred years ago in exhibition two floors up, apparently uninteresting enough that the agency did not even bother about removing it from there.

Except he did not actually want the _dagger itself._ He wanted the _diamonds_ attached to its handle.

Ouma’s blood ran cold. A shiver ran down his spine.

He shouldn’t be enjoying this as much as he was.

“You underestimate me, detective,” Moriarty said with an obvious fake pout, spinning the dagger around his right gloved hand. “It makes me really sad, you know? I thought we had an _unspoken thing_ between us! Y’know, fated archenemies who engage in a frantic battle of intellects and perhaps fall in love in between?”

“There is no unspoken thing between us,” Ouma said, reaching for his earpiece, eyes locked with Moriarty’s. He leaned on it without breaking eye contact, and pressed the tiny button to connect him to the cops outside the room. “He’s here. Come in.”

Only to be met with static.

Moriarty smirked, raising a smug eyebrow as Ouma frowned at his communication earpiece.

“I told you, detective,” Moriarty said, biting up a smile. “You underestimate me.”

Ouma’s frown furthered a bit, then he looked up towards Moriarty.

He was now holding a small device in his hand along with the dagger that resembled a small air-conditioning control.

His breath hitched in his throat again. He widened his eyes. _“What did you do?”_

Every single fiber of his body screamed danger, danger, _danger._ Get away, run, _danger._ But he did not. He would not give Moriarty this sweet taste.

“Ah, this?” Moriarty shook the control with a soft snort. “One of my friends made it for me! Isn’t it cool?! It blocks out all electromagnetic waves from a ten meters radium. As long as this is on and you’re around me, you can’t contact your partner or the cops and they can’t contact you. We’re all alone, baby~”

Crap.

 _Fuck,_ is this how he died? Was _that_ how he was gonna die? Cornered by a criminal like a mouse and killed in an enclosed room because his ego was too inflated? But that was such a _dumb way_ to die! Ouma Kokichi was destined for great things! He was destined to die in his eighties in his fancy mansion in the USA, billionaire, with his beautiful husband with equally beautiful golden-grayish eyes way too familiar for comfort by his side! He would die suddenly, and no one would be able to figure out the mystery behind his death, and it would go down in history as the most exciting murder-mystery that has ever happened. He would make the goddamn Sherlock Holmes proud.

But unfortunately people don’t always get what they want, so it was a good thing that his murderer was _at least_ someone _hot_ and _intelligent._ If someone dumb killed him in a dumb way he would hunt the person down for the rest of their life and then keep hunting them in the afterlife.

He must’ve let his nervousness show, because he was taken back to reality by Moriarty’s soft giggle. “I’m not gonna hurt you, darling. Don’t worry.”

Ouma sighed in relief, placing his hand over his heart. “Ah, thank you so much. I feel so much safer now. Those truly are some very reassuring words for a criminal who’s literally holding a dagger right now.”

Moriarty snorted. “Of course,” then put the dagger and the control back inside his cape. After that, he raised both his hands. “See? I promise I’m not gonna hurt you. I could _never._ I’m a _thief,_ not a murderer. Trust me.”

Ouma hummed, biting the inside of his cheeks. “...I would feel even more reassured if you handed me the dagger.”

The thief snorted again. “Yeah not happening, dear. Sorry. Mind to take my heart instead?”

“What am I supposed to do with that crap?”

“Perhaps an equivalent exchange? I can give you my heart and you can give me yours!”

“Yeah, pass.”

Moriarty snorted under his breath once more, opening a small smile afterwards. “Guess I’ll have to do it in the old fashioned way, then.”

Ouma raised an iffy eyebrow. “That would be...?”

There was a commotion outside the room before Moriarty could answer it, what forced Ouma and the thief to break eye contact. He looked towards the door behind Moriarty, wondering why the police hadn't broken in yet, then looked back at the thief when he saw him slowly approaching him and frowned, wary, with his hand hovering the gun attached to his leg.

Moriarty stopped merely inches away from Ouma and, once again, the detective was awfully reminded of that _ridiculous_ height difference between them _(30 centimeters,_ god. He had to literally _look up_ to look Moriarty in the eyes). He opened his mouth to ask what the thief was planning, but was cut by him quickly pecking him on the cheek.

“I’ll _steal_ your heart, detective Ouma~~”

Ouma widened his eyes, instantly feeling his cheeks warming up, almost not managing to hold back a surprised gasp. When he was gonna push the thief away, the door to the room was busted open and a police officer _finally_ walked into the room.

The officer shouted and leaned on his communication device, Moriarty quickly shot a look towards him from over his shoulders. “Welp, that’s my cue!” He then kissed two of his fingertips and briefly touched them to Ouma’s lips before sprinting out of the room.

… Towards the window behind Ouma.

He didn’t even _hesitate._ Ouma barely had time to react before Moriarty threw his body with all his might against the window and broke the glass in a million pieces, gracefully falling onto the rooftop of the building next to the library with a skilled somersault and immediately starting to run away. 

Ouma scoffed. “Oh no, you won’t. Not this time.”

Ignoring the police officer’s shouts, he jumped out of the window as well to sprint after Moriarty.

He didn’t land as gracefully as the thief, but the fall was not that high to make him hurt himself (he figured the thief picked that part of the library _especially_ because of that; because he had an easy escape route and because the cops wouldn’t think he would _jump off the fifth floor_ to _another_ building. _How_ the cops unknowingly did everything exactly as the thief planned it was still unknown, however). His communication earpiece came to life a few seconds later, Momota’s distressed voice coming out of it through a bit of static.

_“For the love of God please tell me it was not you who I just saw jumping out of the window.”_

“It was!” Ouma shouted to his earpiece, running across the rooftop of the building after Moriarty. “I’m chasing him! Get the car working!”

 _“What the_ _fuck,_ _Ouma!”_

_“Do it, Kaito!”_

He grunted, then let go of his earpiece. Moriarty laughed deeply a few meters ahead of him, in a carefree way, the sound of his voice echoing loudly around the rooftop and his long hair and cape flickering violently behind him with the cold wind. He laughed as if he were having the time of his life.

When he was reaching the edge of the roof, he briefly eyed Ouma from over his shoulders and his wide smile became even wider. “Catch me if you can, detective!”

Then easily jumped to the next building, not even hesitating.

Ouma followed him, naturally, although _he_ braked and hesitated a little when he finally reached the edge of the building –the distance between one rooftop and another couldn’t be larger than two or three meters, but Ouma’s legs were short and he was _not willing_ to fall _four floors,_ thank you.

Hissing, he took a few steps backwards, took a deep breath and then sprinted back towards the edge of the roof. He held his breath as he jumped over it, not daring to look down as he passed over the gap between the buildings and then landed hard on the rooftop of the next one.

He exhaled deeply after he landed, a little breathless, then stood and resumed the chase while trying to ignore how much his legs were shaking and how fast his heart was beating –he experienced more adrenaline in the last month than in all of his twenty-six years, and lived more than he lived his entire life. When his time came, God would probably have to kill him twice.

Moriarty had turned his head backwards to watch him jump between the two buildings, and promptly started smiling proudly when he saw he made it. He started running faster, jumping over a small wall to buy him time when Ouma started to approach him.

Silently, as he chased him, Ouma studied the path Moriarty was taking to try to deduce where the thief was going –he was not running _randomly,_ he had a _destination_ in mind. He wasn’t going to keep jumping from building to building until Ouma decided to give up, or try to hide with the detective in pursuit like that. No, he needed to make it to the floor and to his getaway car, probably parked in one of the alleys between the buildings, so he could escape.

But where?

The library was in a residential part of the city, so there were several buildings in a row decreasing in height like stairs for the thief to jump over until he could safely make it to the ground. And with several buildings, there were several alleys for a getaway car to be hidden, waiting for the thief. But Moriarty could also suddenly change his path at any moment if he decided that Ouma was too dangerous to keep humoring for the sake of their chase –he could decide to jump from the lowest building and proceed to his destination on the ground, using the alleys as a maze to mislead the detective, because he knew Ouma was shorter than him therefore he was slower, but Ouma hardly thought that was an option; judging by the sirens coming from the streets, there were police cars chasing them already.

Jumping over one building to another again, but this time without hesitating, Ouma mentally listed the next few buildings they would have to pass over to reach a safe height to jump to the floor without hurting themselves –according to his mental map, there were two more buildings to jump over until they reached the Kibou Bakery, which was an one-floor building by the end of the block and next to the-

_Ah!_

“He’s leading to the Yokohama Bay Bridge!” Ouma shouted at his earpiece, hoping Momota was still awake and listened to what he told him earlier. “The Kibou Bakery! Go to the alleyway next to the Kibou Bakery!”

For once in his life, Momota listened to him. _“On it!”_

Meters ahead of him, Moriarty laughed. Deeply. He truly seemed to be having the time of his life. Ouma hated his guts.

It didn’t take long for them to reach the rooftop of the bakery, not with the speed they were running. Moriarty didn’t hesitate before jumping from one roof to another, but after the first two buildings Ouma also didn’t hesitate, and he found himself almost within arm’s reach with the thief before he could even realize what was happening.

As soon as he reached the edge of the building, Moriarty stopped and looked downwards for a brief moment.

And then jumped.

He jumped off the goddamn building.

Ouma was so shocked that he momentarily forgot that that guy was the criminal he was chasing. _“Careful!”_

But Moriarty had already jumped by the time Ouma shouted.

There was a loud sound of something heavy hitting the floor, and then a soft but pained _“ah!”_ coming from the street. Ouma quickly crossed the remaining distance to the edge of the building and looked downwards too with his eyes squinted, afraid he would see the sprawled dead body of the criminal he was supposed to catch (he wanted to _catch_ the guy, not fucking _kill_ him, for fuck’s sake), but he almost gasped in surprise when he was met with the sight of Moriarty quickly limping towards a black car, being helped by a redhead girl dressed in white and pink.

Blinking away his surprise, Ouma angrily shouted: “Hold it!”

Both Moriarty and the girl looked up towards him, as well as the getaway driver. The latter two widened their eyes behind their masks, while the former tried to smirk towards him –his smirk, however, was not as smug as his previous ones, pained behind the ache of an apparently sprained ankle.

 _“Bye bye,_ my detective,” the thief said, trying to sound as smug as always, but ending up sounding hurt –his voice didn’t have the usual hoarse, intense tone Ouma was already familiar with, but rather a high and shaky, anxious one, as if he had fucked up and done something he shouldn’t have. As if he was caught slipping. “M-may we see each other again.”

 _“Wait!”_ Ouma shouted again, slightly wide-eyed, moving to descend the emergency ladder attached to the building (he was _not_ gonna jump like Moriarty did and risk getting a matching sprained ankle, thank you), but the girl helping Moriarty quickly helped him into the car and then ran to the passenger seat, and the getaway driver promptly started the car, leaving the detective behind to eat dust.

Momota’s car appeared on the alleyway seconds after that, but the thief and his lackeys had already escaped by then. His partner still stopped by his side, however, with the window rolled down and a bit breathless.

“Where is he?!” Said Momota. “Where _is he,_ Ouma?!”

A very bad idea came to his mind, and Ouma wasted no time before jumping into the passenger seat, equally as breathless, fastening the seat belt. “That direction! Go!”

Momota didn’t ask any other questions. For the _second_ time in his life, he just listened to what Ouma had to say.

He accelerated the car, skittering loudly across the concrete and quickly following the faint trace of dust that Moriarty’s getaway car left behind, and Ouma was suddenly painfully reminded of why he never accepted rides from Momota Kaito.

Momota drove as if it were the end of the world.

For those who liked the adrenaline of living on the edge, Ouma supposed Momota was a _relatively_ good driver; he respected traffic signs, never got into an accident (except for accidentally hitting a light pole once or twice) and overall had a good control of the wheel, but he just drove really fast. Like really, really fast. Fast & Furious worth of fast –although Ouma _would_ call himself an adrenaline enthusiast, he just _did not_ like to see his life passing behind his eyes every time the car took off after a green light, thank you. The way Momota drove was simply _too much,_ even for him. Too much.

Still, the way he drove could be an advantage for them if they were chasing a highly wanted criminal on a highway. And that was _exactly_ what they were doing now.

It didn’t take long for him to locate the thief’s getaway car once they left the alleyway and went back to the highway. “There!” He shouted, despite having Momota to his immediate left, pointing to the black car far away from them and zigzagging between civilians cars. “That’s his car!”

“I thought you said they would block the highway!” Momota shouted back, with his eyes focused on the street, angrily hitting the steering wheel. He zigzagged between the civilians cars as well, trying to gain them ground. Distantly, Ouma heard police sirens approaching. “Fuck, what _the fuck is this?!”_

“Well I _thought_ they would block it!” Ouma replied, firmly gripping the car handle. “I _told_ them to block it, but I think they thought I was too bossy!”

“Then maybe try to be _less of a prick_ next time!”

_“Fuck you!”_

By then, Moriarty’s getaway driver must have noticed they were being chased, for they suddenly accelerated their car to try to mislead Ouma and Momota and caused some of the drivers around them to honk. Momota grunted angrily and accelerated as well, skillfully zigzagging between the cars around their car and crossing two or three, gaining a few honks of their own.

“Go faster!” Ouma yelled when he started to miss Moriarty’s car in the crowd.

“This is the fastest I can go! I’m already going way faster than I should!” Momota angrily answered. “There’s too many cars around! Any faster would be dangerous!”

“He’s gonna _escape, Kaito!”_

“Ouma, I _can’t_ go faster!”

 _“Do it,_ dammit!”

Momota grunted, but ended up complying. He accelerated again, crossing two more cars and gaining a few more honks, with his hands gripping the steering wheel so firmly that his knuckles were white. Ouma had his eyes fixed on Moriarty’s car the entire time, afraid he would miss it if he looked away from the highway for even a second, with his jaw clenched and knuckles also white from gripping the car handle. Sweat started to form on his hairline, glueing his fringe to his forehead. The fear of going much faster than the speed limit mixed with the overwhelming adrenaline of chasing a criminal like in the movies was making his heart beat dangerously fast in his chest and his breath hitch in his throat. If they went just a little faster, Ouma was afraid the car would leave the asphalt and start flying.

He exhaled heavily, with his eyes slightly widened, and right when he was about to tell Momota to go _even faster,_ a car a few meters away signalized to change lanes.

Ouma gasped. “Look out!”

Momota, instantly, tried to brake and swerve, but it was already too late.

He lost control of the steering wheel, and Ouma saw his life passing through his eyes as the car skidded on the highway, hit the curb and overturned, spinning in the air twice before hitting back the ground and sliding across the asphalt with a sharp sound before fully stopping.

For a moment, neither of them said anything, too startled and shocked to say something, staring at the highway in front of them with widened eyes. Then, Momota exhaled softly.

And Ouma started laughing.

The sound of his laughter snapped Momota out of it. _“Ouma,”_ he said, perplexed. Then, he blinked away his confused state and widened his eyes even more, turning to look at Ouma. _“Ouma. Ouma!_ Are you okay?!”

Ouma scoffed, then grunted and squeezed his eyes shut, touching his forehead. “Yeah. I’m fine.”

“You’re bleeding!”

“Am I?” Ouma re-opened his eyes, looked at his fingers. Indeed, they returned bloody from his forehead. “Shit, I am. But it’s okay, I didn't hit my head,” the blood was probably from a cut caused by the broken windows. “Are _you_ okay?”

“I- I think? Yeah, I think so. Just- just a bit freaked out.”

Ouma snorted, then turned to look at his partner. He raised an eyebrow at him, pointed at his own nose. “You’re also bleeding.”

Momota touched his nose in the same place Ouma was pointing at, hissing when his digits touched the new open wound: a small cut across his nose, next to the bridge. He also saw the small cuts on his fingers as he raised his hand, probably from when the window broke –if he were not wearing those weird three-finger only gloves, the result would probably be uglier. “Crap. Nothing a band-aid won’t fix. Do you have any other wounds? Are your legs hurting?”

“I’m _fine,_ Momota-chan,” Ouma snorted, then sighed. “We lost him again.”

Momota stared at the highway in front of them, now without traffic because of their car crash. He pressed his lips together. “... I am _slightly_ more worried about the fact I crashed one of _Togami-san’s_ cars.”

Ouma scoffed, then burst out laughing. The few police cars following them finally approached them, stopping by their car and quickly checking on them. They helped them out of the car to inspect their injuries and then called an ambulance, despite both Momota and Ouma insisting that it wasn’t needed.

As Ouma sat in the ambulance with that stupid and unnecessary shock blanket thrown over his shoulders and an ever more stupid and unnecessary bandage wrapped around his head (he had only a _scratch above his left eyebrow._ Literally. Why wrap a whole bandage around his head?), sipping from his grape jelly drink and alone with his thoughts as Momota had his wounds checked on, all he could think about was the way Moriarty’s voice faltered after he jumped out of the building and how painfully familiar it sounded, although he couldn’t quite tell from where.  
  


* * *

 **  
Yokohama, October 5th, 2018. Friday.**

The day after the accident, Ouma didn’t show up at work. The following day, neither. On Friday, when his two day off ended and he had to go back to work, the first thing that happened was a very sudden bear hug that left him astonished and at loss of words.

“Ouma-kun!” Saihara shouted as soon as Ouma stepped into the office that morning, hugging the detective so tightly that he was left slightly breathless. “Ouma-kun! I-I heard from Harukawa-san that you and Momota-kun got into a car accident on Tuesday! I was so worried! A-are you okay?! Are you hurt?!” 

For a moment, Ouma didn’t know how to react, because that was just how Saihara usually got him: wordless. He felt inclined to lie, to push the newbie away and giggle it off and start his dramatization about how close to death he felt and how he suffered fifty-seven consecutive cardiac arrests and how the doctors had to resuscitate him thirty-two times in a span of five minutes. But the way Saihara was holding him, and how worried he sounded…

Saihara’s cologne smelled really nice.

Ouma sighed in the embrace, allowing Saihara to hold him as if his life depended on it, circling the newbie’s waist with his own arms and closing his eyes. He inhaled Saihara’s sweet cologne and hoped that his face wasn’t flushed.

He giggled, face pressed against Saihara’s chest. What a lovely way to start the day. “Woah, what a nice welcome! Maybe I should start getting in more car accidents if this is how you’re gonna welcome me back~”

Saihara pulled away, but did not separate the embrace. Instead, he held Ouma’s shoulders and widened his eyes. “Do not! Don’t say that even as a joke!”

Ouma giggled again. “That was a lie, Saihara-chan. I hope I never get in a car accident again, but I’m fine. Really am. I just got a scratch here, see?” He pulled his fringe to the side so Saihara could see the cut above his eyebrow connected by two small butterfly closures. “It will be good as new in a few days.”

Saihara inspected the wound for a few seconds, then searched Ouma’s face and body for any other wounds and sighed in relief when he didn’t find any, concluding he was fine. Ouma smiled at him, and after he combed his fringe back to its place, Saihara touched their foreheads together and closed his eyes, exhaling softly. Ouma’s breath hitched in his throat, and he tried not to push himself away because of the sudden proximity.

“I was so scared,” Saihara whispered. “I came to work on Wednesday and didn’t see you or Momota-kun and then Harukawa-san just told me you got in a car accident while chasing that thief and I was… I was so worried.”

“I’m fine, Saihara-chan,” Ouma ended up murmuring back, smiling quietly when he pulled away again to look Saihara in the eyes, brushing the newbie’s fringe away from his face so he could see his worried eyes behind those big glasses of his. “You really think I would die that easily? Of course not! I’m the greatest detective working for the Future Foundation! I’ll be the one to catch Moriarty, so I obviously can’t die so suddenly like this!”

Saihara held his stare for a moment, then smiled softly at him. He pulled him closer for another tight, long embrace, holding him close enough for Ouma to get drunk on his sweet smell, before stiffening suddenly.

He awkwardly pulled away, with his eyes slightly widened behind his glasses and a faint blush tinting his cheeks pink. “A-ah,” he said, looking away from Ouma and picking on the sleeves of his sweater. “S-sorry.”

Ouma snorted softly, waving a dismissing hand while walking towards his desk. “Don’t mind, Saihara-chan. I know I’m irresistible~” he replied, praying his cheeks were not too red.

It wasn’t only until he sat down in his chair that he noticed Harukawa by the bookshelves in the back of the room, silently organizing some books.

He gasped, startled, putting a hand over his heart. _“Jesus fucking Christ,_ Harumaki-chan! How long have you been there?!”

Harukawa shot a look at him from over her shoulders. _“Don’t call me that._ And since the beginning of the day. Momota is not here yet, how do you think Saihara got in?”

“I don’t know, maybe he _teleported_ or something,” Ouma answered, then eyed Saihara for a second and smirked. He put his index finger in front of his mouth and twirled a strand of his hair with his free hand. “Or maybe he _lock-picked_ his way in.”

Saihara blinked. “What?”

“Do you know how to lock-pick, Saihara-chan?”

For a moment, Saihara seemed to ponder. “I don’t think so…?”

 _“What?!”_ Ouma gasped. “Inconceivable! All my newbies have a degree in lock-picking!”

“Do they now?” Harukawa murmured.

 _“Of course!”_ Ouma insisted. “If you are going to take Momota-chan's place as my partner in the future, then you _must_ learn how to lock-pick!”

“Momota doesn’t know how to pick locks,” Harukawa said. 

“Well, _yeah,”_ Ouma scoffed. “That’s exactly why Saihara-chan will take his place as my partner.”

“Also, don’t bad-mouth him when he’s not here to defend himself.”

“Don’t bad-mouth who? Who are we bad-mouthing today?”

All the three people present in the room turned towards the new voice, stepping into the office with a big smile on his face. As if he was just waiting for his cue, Momota easily joined them –much like Ouma, Momota had butterfly closures on the nose wound as well, and a few band-aids wrapped around the small cuts on his fingers. Regardless, he looked just fine. Better than Ouma himself (although Ouma figured it was because Momota was not the one to have his pride hurt _again_ by the criminal they were chasing. Twice in a row now.)

“Wouldn't you like to know, space boy?” Ouma scoffed again, rolling his eyes. Through his peripheral vision, he saw Saihara hide a smile behind the sleeves of his sweater. It absolutely _did not_ make his heart skip a beat.

“Yeah no coffee for you today, Ouma,” Momota grunted, giving one cup of coffee to Saihara and sipping from his own coffee. He went to his desk as usual, but stopped to smile and wave at Harukawa before. He raised the third cup of coffee, the one that was supposed to go to _Ouma,_ while looking at her, indicating it was _her_ coffee now. “Didn’t think you would be here this early in the morning, Harumaki.”

Harukawa hummed. “You idiots didn’t show up in time, so I had to open the office for Saihara.”

Ouma raised an eyebrow. “And you’re still here because…?”

She shrugged, resumed her task of organizing the books on the bookshelves. “As I was already here and had nothing else to do in the morning, I decided to arrange your books on the bookshelves since they were all scattered around the office. Do you not know how to put the books back on the shelves once you’re done reading?” She then frowned. “How do you even have _time_ to read when all you do is chase that phantom thief day and night?”

“Oh, I am _so glad_ you asked,” Ouma said. At the mention of the phantom thief, unconsciously, he put his hand inside his cardigan pocket and played absently with the business card still silently resting there, heavy and provocative. “I don’t actually read the books. I just pile them up to reach the top of the TV so I can hide Momota-chan’s pack of cigarettes. Sometimes I hide his phone too.”

Momota hissed. “That was _you?!”_

“Momota-chan, you underestimate me,” Ouma flatly said. _“Of course_ it was me. Who else could hide your cigarettes? Or your phone? _Saihara-chan?”_

“I thought I had _lost_ them! You fucking dick!”

Ouma lazily pointed at the camera above the door of their files room, installed after Moriarty broke in to deliver that note a couple of weeks ago. “That’s why you should check on the cameras more often.”

“Well _I’m sorry_ if I don’t have time to do that! Some people actually work here!”

“One day I will hide your ugly crocs. Maybe then you will stop assaulting my eyes with those ugly things every morning.”

“Bold of you to assume he has only one pair,” Harukawa murmured.

Ouma turned to look at her, then smirked naughtly. “Oh? And how do _you_ know that?”

“I _don’t,”_ Harukawa replied, although she seemed to hesitate for a moment. “It was an _assumption._ Like one would assume Momota likes Simple Plan only because of the _Astronaut_ song. Saihara, will you help me or not?”

“A-ah!” Saihara stammered, slightly surprised for being suddenly mentioned like that. “R-right, sorry!” He quickly took a sip of his coffee and walked to Harukawa by the bookshelves, but not before leaving his coffee at Ouma’s desk –as Saihara walked, Ouma briefly squinted his eyes at him. Was Saihara limping?

He didn’t dwell on the thought, however. He just quickly shook his head, then grunted. “I already told you! No Simple Plan is allowed in this house!”

“What do you even have against Simple Plan anyway?! That’s the second time you talk about them like they murdered your family or some shit!” Momota threw his arms up exasperatedly, then hissed in pain –like Ouma, he was probably still sore from the car accident.

“No.” Harukawa interrupted them before they got into another heated argument about the band. “You are _not_ having this conversation again. Stop, for my own sake.”

“See?” Ouma said. “Even _Harumaki-chan_ agrees with me.”

 _“Do not_ call me that,” Ouma could feel Harukawa’s cold glare on his neck. “And I am _not_ agreeing with you. I just don’t want a headache when I have a mission this evening.”

“Shit, man,” Momota said. “Sorry. I didn’t know you had a mission today.”

“It’s fine.”

Ouma rolled his eyes, taking a sip from the coffee Saihara gave him. It still tasted like crap, but he was starting to grow used to the bitter taste. “And there he goes with the imaginary tail wagging.”

“Fuck you, man.”

“Pass.”

“Seriously, let me live, dude. Get off my dick.”

“Ewww.”

Momota shot a quick look at Harukawa and Saihara to confirm they were not listening to their conversation, then leaned over to say a little lower than before: “You talk about Saihara all the time but I never say you’ve got an imaginary tail wagging.”

Ouma sighed dramatically. “I know, right? Isn’t it cruel? You’ve got Harukawa-chan, but I only want what I can’t have.”

A beat. When he got the reference, Momota grunted, leaning back against his chair. “So I’m forbidden from talking about Simple Plan, but you can make references to Fall Out Boy? No. You are also forbidden from making emo references.” 

Ouma opened a very slow smug smirk, getting Momota exactly where he wanted. “So I _am_ more than you bargained for?”

A moment of silence passed, then someone burst out in giggles behind him. His smirk became even more smug as he turned around to tease Saihara for getting the reference, but he was caught by surprise when he saw that the one who laughed at his joke was not Saihara, but Harukawa.

As soon as she noticed Ouma staring, she quickly stopped giggling and cleared her throat, going back to her usual scowl. However, Ouma could see the corner of her lips threatening to twirl up in a smile.

He stared at her in astonishment for a moment before asking: “Are you an emo, Harukawa-chan?”

She instantly glared daggers at him, in a way that made Ouma almost step back because of the oppressing murderous aura. She turned her head to look at him in a way that made her hair flutter and momentarily look like dark tendrils. _“Do you wish to die?!”_

 _“Eek!”_ Ouma screeched. “Momota-chan, get your deadly girlfriend!”

“She won’t hurt you.”

“Yes she will!”

“We’re not dating,” Harukawa said.

Momota nodded. “Yeah, that too.”

Ouma allowed the crocodile tears to run down his face and smear his eyeliner a little longer, then sniffed and started giggling. “Man, I can’t believe Harukawa-chan is an emo. I would have expected this from _Saihara-chan,_ but not from her~”

“I’m not an emo,” Harukawa firmly stated.

“You know I hate liars, Harumaki-chan.”

Harukawa glared at him. _“Don’t test me.”_

“Don’t test her, man,” Momota parroted. “If Harumaki attacks you I will not try to protect you.”

“Yeah, okay. Whatever,” Ouma waved a dismissing hand, then turned his chair around to look at Saihara. “What about you, _Shumai?”_

Saihara instantly gasped in surprise with the sudden nickname, dropping the book he was holding. It fell right on his left foot, making him hiss in pain. After a moment, he picked it up, returned it to the shelf and eyed Ouma sideways. _“What?”_

“Are you emo?” Ouma asked, while Momota asked “who the fuck is _‘Shumai’?”_ at the same time.

“A-ah,” Saihara pushed his glasses backwards. “I don’t think so? I do listen to bands considered _‘emo’_ sometimes but I don’t consider myself one.”

Ouma gave him the most unimpressed expression he managed. “You dress all in back and wear smudged eyeliner most of the time. There’s no way you’re not an emo. Just like Momota-chan is the number one fan of _A Rocket to the Moon.”_

“I beg to differ,” Momota said.

“Then beg,” Ouma replied.

They got into another heated argument about whether Saihara was an emo or not (he totally was), which later escalated into an even more heated argument once again about whether Simple Plan was good or not and if Momota only liked them because of the _Astronaut_ song or not (he didn’t even like Simple Plan that much). Harukawa left the office after the second hour, claiming that she already had a headache and did not want to increase it even more with stupid arguments –after she was gone, they managed to get a whole hour without any petty arguments until Saihara absently started humming _Your Love Is a Lie_ and restarted the chaos.

The rest of the day was spent with easy giggles and more petty fights, friendly banter, and with no big cases for them to solve. Once again, Saihara and Ouma had lunch together, although they did not leave the facility this time and chose to eat at the Hanamura Diner with Momota and later Harukawa. During the afternoon, Ouma ran over Moriarty’s files while Momota wrote their reports, and Saihara just quietly sat by his side helping him.

Once the day was over and they had to go home for the night, Ouma accepted a ride from Hinata-chan from the Seventh Division, since they lived relatively close to each other and Ouma simply refused to accept rides from Momota after Tuesday (but also, it was no like Momota _himself_ was driving. From what Ouma grasped from eavesdropping his conversations with Saihara, Harukawa drove him home that night). He spent the whole ride teasing Hinata about his obvious _something_ with Komaeda-chan the Janitor (who was sitting in the passenger seat, by the way), and as soon as he was dropped home, Hinata told him that he would never offer him a ride again.

Once in the quietness and loneliness of his apartment, Ouma stretched and yawned, feeling drained despite having done nothing the entire day. He took a very long and relaxing bath, almost sleeping in the bathtub, then put on his pajamas and ordered junk food, not feeling physically able to cook that day. As he waited for his dinner, he put on the TV show he was binging and sat down on his couch, trying to pay attention to the subtitles.

He couldn’t, however, keep focused, because his goddamn mind just continued to go back to earlier today.

Biting the inside of his cheeks, he grabbed the closest pillow and hugged it tightly, screaming the loudest he could against it.

Saihara was just so freaking _cute._

His hair, his smile, his laugh, his voice. The way he acted when he was flushed, or when he was shy, or embarrassed. How he blushed slightly when Ouma flirted with him but always flirted back. How he always seemed to be wondering whether he should hold Ouma’s hand when they were walking side by side or if he should just hook their arms together, and how he always seemed to be so goddamn worried about him.

Ouma literally could not stop thinking about the way Saihara hugged him that morning as if his life depended on it. 

Saihara’s hands were cold, but his arms were so, so warm. His embrace was so welcoming, so comfortable, and Ouma’s tiny frame fit his arms so perfectly, almost as if he were made _specifically_ to hug him. Ouma figured that, if those edgy _Tumblr_ quotes were wrong and home was actually a place, not a person, then his home would be in Saihara’s arms.

And it was this _exact same_ acknowledgement that freaked him out.

He was starting to grow way too fond of Saihara for comfort.

He was not going to try to deny it. No, it would be stupid to try, and far too much of an asshole move. Saihara was really, really pretty, and he was pretty much his type –tall, gorgeous, kind, shy but flirty. He was definitely boyfriend material, and judging by the way the newbie blushed around him, he was _at least_ a little bit attracted to Ouma as well. _If_ they were to try something, even if it was something _casual,_ it _could_ work; they would not be the first ones in the Agency to get romantically involved, and definitely not the last ones. 

But at the same time, Ouma had a big case on his hands, probably the biggest case of his entire career, and Moriarty...

…

… Why was he thinking about Moriarty at a time like that?

He was suddenly taken away from the dreamland by his apartment’s intercom ringing, probably signaling that his food had arrived. Hissing, he slipped into his slippers and his cardigan and left the apartment to grab his food. After tipping the delivery man and exchanging some few words with the concierge, he returned to his apartment, locking the door behind him and stopping briefly by the kitchen to grab his grape panta and wash his hands before going straight back to the couch. He pressed play on the TV show he was previously watching, took off his slippers and sat cross-legged on the couch, savouring his take out pizza.

After he was done, he left the plate on the coffee table and proceeded with his binge-watch of the TV show, hands shoved inside his cardigan’s pockets because it was sort of cold and he had forgotten to grab a blanket –he, however, did not go into his room to grab one, because he knew that if he walked into his room he would sleep and he wanted to at least finished that season of the show.

As he watched the show, because his hands were stuck in his pockets, he played absently with the business card still resting there in the left one, heavy and presumptuous, mocking him. When he realized what he was doing, however, he stopped watching the show and took the business card out of his pocket, staring at the mocking letters written in fancy golden calligraphy.

_MORIARTY_

_\- phantom thief  
_ \- consulting criminal  
\- napoleon of crime

_If you were lucky enough to get this card, call me whenever you need it!_

_XXXXX-XXXX_

By then, the corners of the card were already slightly torn and the card itself was creased, as a result of the card becoming Ouma’s personal stress-relief and motivational object. He probably should have got rid of that thing by now, but there was something about it that just made it impossible for him to throw it away.

(It was probably because it was a reminder of how goddamn annoying and cocky that thief was. He kept the card because, when he eventually caught that criminal, he would probably throw it back at him just as he did with him when they first met.)

As he stared at the card, absently, Ouma wondered not for the first time: _what would happen if he dialed the number displayed on the card?_

As a detective, he probably _should have,_ but he never tried dialing the number before. He didn’t think it would lead him anywhere, didn’t think it was a real functioning number; reason why he also never told anyone about the business card always resting silently inside his pocket. In fact, he really just kept the card as a reminder of how much he hated that criminal he was chasing.

Well, it was worth a shot, was it not?

Shrugging, he reached for his phone and dialed the number, resting his head on the couch behind him and closing his eyes as it rang and rang and rang. He yawned, bored, as he waited for someone to pick up or don’t –probably _don’t,_ since the number was very unlikely to be real.

He yawned again and, right when he was about to give up and go to bed…

Someone picked the call.

_“Hellooooo?~~”_

Ouma instantly froze. All the sleepiness he had previously felt had suddenly disappeared from his body.

“No way,” he unconsciously said out loud, shocked, stunned. “No fucking way. You’re kidding me. You _gotta be_ _kidding me.”_

The person on the other side of the call fell silent for a moment, and then: _“Oh? Is this my detective? Did he finally decide to surrender to his own overwhelming feelings for little ol’ meee?”_

“Shut up,” Ouma hissed. “Shut up, I can’t believe this is actually happening. I can’t believe you _actually_ gave me your fucking number.”

 _“Why yes, of course I did!”_ Ouma couldn’t see him, but he could _hear_ Moriarty’s smile. _“That’s what business cards are for! Also, I’m glad to know that you’re okay! I saw your car crashing last time!”_

“I’m the detective _chasing you!”_

 _“I know, right?! Isn’t it exciting?! You almost caught me, so you earned the card!”_ Moriarty was basically _shining_ with glee. _“Now I’m playing cops and robbers with my favorite detective!”_

“You’re such a dick.”

_“Well, yes. Addicted to you~"_

“Shut the hell up,” Ouma hissed again. “God, shut up. _Why_ are you _so annoying?!”_

_“It’s part of my charm~~”_

Ouma opened his mouth to refute it, but closed it back with a loud sound. He adjusted his posture on the couch, brought his legs to his chest and rested his chin on his knees. “It’s easy to act cocky when you’re on the other end of a phone call, isn’t it?”

_“Sure is!”_

“You don’t have to worry about getting caught when you’re in the comfort of your house just pissing people off over the phone.”

_“Yes! You got it!”_

Ouma chuckled. “I knew it. You’re a coward.”

A beat. _“I... Beg your pardon?”_

“You’re a coward, Moriarty,” Ouma repeated. “You act all confident and smug, but the moment someone is about to beat you at your own game, you back away. Then you piss people off over a phone, because you know you’re safe that way.”

For a moment, Moriarty fell silent. Then, his voice returned through the speakers, slightly lower than usual. _“You wound me, detective,”_ he said. _“You think I back away because I don’t play fair? That’s not it.”_

“Oh yeah?” Ouma said. “Then enlighten me, _thief.”_

 _“I’m a criminal,”_ Moriarty replied. _“While I do love the chase, the adrenaline of being chased, the spotlight and this little game of ours, I love my liberty even more. I can’t risk losing it only because I would like to see what you would look like when you win. The flirting and the game is fun, of course, and I_ love _the feeling, the goosebumps I get when I’m on the edge, when I’m about to get caught, but I’d rather keep my freedom.”_

It was Ouma’s turn of falling silent. He bit his lips, chewed on them, staring at the paused Netflix screen on his TV with his phone still glued to his ear.

In a way, he supposed that made sense. He’s thought about that before, not long ago –Moriarty was a _criminal,_ so his top priority would always be himself despite loving the adrenaline. Ouma could relate to that; he himself used to do a lot of things considered morally wrong when he was a dumb teenager, way before he even _thought_ about becoming a detective, so he _knew_ how the raw adrenaline of almost getting caught could be addicting. He’s been there. He _understood_ how Moriarty felt, and once again he found himself having to admit that the thief was _good._ He wouldn’t be out there for _that_ long, tricking the police and Ouma himself, if he was careless or stupid.

(And Ouma _hated_ that about him. It would be _way easier_ to hate the guy if he was stupid.)

“So you only act like that because you’re keeping yourself safe?” He ended up asking after a moment in silence, drifting away with his thoughts.

Moriarty considered that for a moment, then hummed. _“That would be one way to look at it, yes. It’s easier to manipulate naive people.”_

So Ouma thought about it –if Moriarty only acted like that (like a fucking _asshole)_ to keep himself safe, then how would he act in a hypotetical scenario where he _didn’t need_ to keep the cocky persona? In a scenario where he and Ouma could have an _actual_ conversation? Because there was no way in hell that was actually his true personality. Even _Ouma_ didn’t act that cocky and annoying all the time, and he was _Ouma Kokichi,_ the _captain_ of the _Annoying Motherfuckers_ ship, the guy who managed to provoke his new partner within _five minutes_ when they first met, the guy who had a reputation for driving people crazy at the agency. He wanted to _know_ what was going on inside that pretty head of his, why was he acting that way, what he needed to hide, what his motivations were.

If involving the cops didn’t work, then he wondered if he could rip some information from the thief without… 

“Then how about we meet up?” He proposed, not giving time for his brain to think over how fucking _stupid_ that idea was and chicken out. It was too late to back away now. “Not when you have a robbery to perform, not when there are several people chasing you. I mean only you and me, meeting up somewhere where you won’t have to worry about the police in pursuit, somewhere where you don’t need to keep the prick asshole persona. Somewhere we can talk, just you and me.”

There was a moment of silence on the call, and then: _“Oh?”_ Moriarty said. Ouma once again could _hear_ his smile. _“Are you asking me on a date, detective? Oh, I’m flattered! I didn’t know we were already at_ this _point in our relationship!”_

Ouma grunted. “It’s _not_ a date! I just wanna talk! Fuck off!”

_“Buy me dinner first!”_

“Shut up. Shut the hell up. Do you wanna meet up or not?” Ouma was already regretting ever saying something in the first place, but he still bit his lip and held his breath in expectation –would Moriarty see through him and realize that he was up to something? Or would he simply shrug it off? Would he simply end the call without answering? Or maybe-

_“O-kay!”_

Ouma barely managed to hold back a gasp, and couldn’t help but blink in surprise. “Come again?”

 _“I said okay! I’ll go on a date with you~~”_ Moriarty parroted. Ouma pictured him lying on a couch twirling a strand of his hair between his fingers. _“Just tell me where and when and I’ll be there!”_

 _“Okay,”_ Ouma breathed, slightly eye-wided. He didn’t even correct the ‘date’ part of Moriarty’s sentence. Fuck, he _did not_ plan out this part; in fact, he didn’t even _think_ he would ever talk to the thief that casually one day.

He didn’t think his plan would _work._

_“Soooo?”_

_“Wait,_ dammit!” He hissed on the phone, looking around his apartment for something that could give him a place to take Moriarty. He briefly eyed the magazines resting above his TV panel. His eyes lightened up. “W-what about that _Kumasutra hotel?!”_ It was a well-known hotel downtown, not that expensive or fancy, but of easy access and without much demand. If he managed to lure Moriarty to one of the rooms from the highest floors, there was a good chance that the thief would not be able to escape him even if he tried.

Moriarty was silent for a moment, and then he hummed. _“T-the Kumasutra hotel, you say? Yes, I am familiarized. When?”_

On the one hand, he needed time to think about a plan. On the other hand, he still didn’t know what Moriarty's new schedule was, so the thief could strike again two days from now for all he knew. So he just cursed under his breath, bit his lip and decided to sacrifice his night’s sleep again. “How about tomorrow?”

 _“Woah, tomorrow?!”_ Moriarty replied with a loud gasp. Ouma could tell it was an overreaction. _“Does my detective miss me so much that he can’t stand being away from me?!”_

“Do you _want to meet up tomorrow or not?!”_

The thief giggled, amused. _“Sure, my love. At what time?”_

“Nine o’clock PM?”

 _“It’s a date then!”_ Moriarty said. _“It’s gonna be just the two of us, yes? No cops or your partner or any of your detective buddies?”_

Ouma bit the inside of his cheeks. “No, it will be only the two of us,” he replied with a sigh, then cut the thief when he heard him breathing in. “But I’m gonna bring my gun so don’t try anything!”

Moriarty scoffed softly. _“Of course, darling. I would never.”_

He bit the inside of his cheeks again, sighed once more, then closed his eyes. “See ya tomorrow.”

_“See ya there, my detective~”_

Ouma ended the call, then sighed deeply and stared at the ceiling above him, feeling dizzy after the conversation. 

God, what was he _thinking?!_

Not allowing his thoughts to consume him, he hummed a song under his breath for a minute or so as he waited for the adrenaline of talking to a criminal on a phone to run dry, and then picked up his phone again. He checked the time before easily dialing Momota’s number, already deeply engraved inside his brain, while hoping the man was still awake.

Momota, surprisingly, picked up on the second ring. _“Ouma?”_

He didn’t sound sleepy like last time, so Ouma at least didn’t wake him up. “We need a plan.”

 _“A plan?”_ Momota parroted. _“For what?”_

“Catching Moriarty,” Ouma replied.

 _“Oh?”_ Momota said. _“Did he give you a new riddle already?!”_

“No, it’s just…” Ouma bit his lips, then exhaled deeply. “We agreed to meet up tomorrow night, and we need a plan.”

For a moment, the call was silent, and then: _“I beg your pardon?”_

“Look, before you go around judging me, let me-”

_“Ouma, what the fuck?!”_

“I think there’s a possibility that-”

 _“No, dude, wait. Hold up. Hold on a moment,”_ Momota interrupted him. Ouma complied. _“Who’s ‘we’? Because I didn’t agree to-”_

“I don’t mean _you,_ shit-for-brains,” Ouma hissed. “I mean Moriarty and me. We’re meeting up tomorrow, just the two of us.”

Once again, the call was a silent, and then:

_“Dude, that’s so fucking stupid.”_

Ouma rolled his eyes. “Thanks.”

 _“No, I mean it,”_ Momota insisted. _“Why the fuck are you meeting up with a fucking criminal all by yourself? Do you think you’re God or some shit?! You may annoy the fuck out of me but I ain’t lettin’ you do that!”_

“How considerate,” he rolled his eyes again. “But I’m not going alone, I’m not that fucking stupid. That’s why we need a plan.”

That seemed to convince Momota. _“Okay, fine. Shit, I see. Now it’s-”_ a pause. _“It’s already past midnight, but do you want me to come over? Do you already have something in mind?”_

Ouma almost said no, said that they could discuss a plan tomorrow at work, but then he was reminded that they didn’t have work tomorrow so they would have to discuss a plan through the phone, and discussing a plan through the phone would be so goddamn _exhausting._ So he ended up shrugging. “Sure. I have pizza. We can come up with a plan while we eat.”

_“Hell yeah!”_

Ouma ended the call a moment later, then threw his phone aside and stretched with a yawn. Luckily, they wouldn’t take too long to come up with a plan and he would at least have some good hours of sleep before meeting up with a whole-ass criminal all by himself.

While Momota didn’t arrive, Ouma did the dishes and rolled out his additional futon on the living room for Momota to sleep, then sat back on the couch and pressed play on the show he was watching. He managed to watch the rest of the episode he was watching and half of the next one until Momota didn’t arrive.

Once his partner was there, however, they discussed a plan while they ate the leftovers of the pizza –Ouma would book one of the rooms on the highest floor of the hotel, arrive earlier than he should and lock all the windows of the room, study all the escape routes and then check the other rooms on the floor to see if they were vacant or not, and have Momota waiting in one of the closest rooms to the one he would be in. This time, they wouldn’t involve the police, since the last times involving the police didn’t really turn out well. Then, he would text Moriarty the number of the room they would meet up and wait. Once he arrived, Ouma would lock themselves inside the room so the thief wouldn’t have a way out, maybe talk to him to try to rip some information from him, then he would call Momota in and then finally, _finally,_ he would catch that bastard.

Was it kind of a dick move to trick Moriarty like that? Probably. But it wasn’t like the guy was innocent. And if it was _Moriarty_ in his shoes, he would probably do the same. If anything, it was the _thief’s_ fault for blindly trusting a detective like that.

And this time, _Ouma_ would be the one laughing, because he who laughs last, laughs best.  
  


* * *

  
It wasn’t until the time to wait at the hotel Kumasutra arrived that Ouma realized how nervous he was.

Alone in the room he picked, he stared out the window at the street down below the building, where some cars were parked and some people walked through the sidewalks, stamping his feet anxiously on the floor. Momota was waiting in the room immediately next to his with Iruma, since she worked with technology and they needed to keep an eye on the cameras in the hall. He had a nano earpiece on, hidden by his hair, in case he needed to communicate with Momota or wanted him to hear whatever he and the thief talked about when he arrived.

The earpiece, at the moment, however, was being used for him to hear Momota and Iruma having a very heated argument about whether Pluto was a planet or not.

 _“For the last time, Iruma, Pluto cannot be considered a planet because it has only two of the three necessary characteristics to be considered one,”_ Momota explained with a sigh and, although Ouma could not see his face, he could tell he was pressing the bridge of his nose.

_“But two is already more than half!”_

_“Iruma, that’s_ not _how it works. It_ must _have all three characteristics. They’re_ necessary.”

_“I think y’all are just being mean. If I were this type of scientist, I would consider Pluto a planet. I think he’s b-big enough f-for me~”_

That was it for Ouma. “If I hear one more word from any of you on this subject, I will jump out of this window. And this is not a lie.”

_“Eek!”_

_“No more jumping out of windows, Ouma. For my own health.”_

“Shut the hell up then,” Ouma grunted. “What time is it?”

 _“Uh,”_ Momota said. _“Ten to nine. You should get ready, he’ll be there anytime now.”_

Ouma nodded, even though Momota couldn’t see him. “Fine, tell me when he’s here. And shut up, both of you.”

_“Y-yes.”_

Momota sighed. _“Okay.”_

Ouma sighed as well, then stretched and cracked his fingers. He moved away from the window to stand behind the door, then waited for Momota’s signal.

It came in two minutes.

 _“He’s here,”_ Momota said through the earpiece. _“He’s coming up now. Good luck.”_

“Thanks. Give us a moment. If I don’t leave the room in thirty minutes, _break in,”_ Ouma murmured, and then he clicked off the communicator. As he waited for the thief, he held his breath, and counted to ten.

On eight, the door creaked open, and Moriarty walked into the room.

He walked in slowly, looked around for a moment and stopped in the middle of the room, which was when Ouma closed and locked the door behind him before throwing the key in the hall through the door gap.

The sound of the door closing got Moriarty’s attention, and the thief turned on his heels to look towards the sound with raised eyebrows. When he saw Ouma waiting behind the door like he did back at the library, he opened a proud smirk.

“Ah, living and learning, huh?” The thief said. He looked at the now locked door, and at the equally locked window, and nodded. “Trapping me in a place like this. That’s very like you, Mr. Detective~”

“It’s a precaution," Ouma said with a slow nod. The thief calmly took a seat at the edge of the bed, smiling as if he was not just trapped inside a room with the detective chasing him, dramatically throwing his cape backwards. “You know, so you don’t run away like a chicken like you always do.”

Moriarty crossed one leg over the other and leaned on his left arm, tilting his head slightly to the side and smirking. “Maybe I’ll jump out of the window again.”

“We’re on the sixth floor and there are no lower buildings for you to jump over,” Ouma pointed, deciding to sit on the armchair in front of the bed. “And we both know you’re not stupid. You’re gonna risk yourself jumping off the sixth floor. Besides, you got hurt last time, so you won’t act recklessly again.”

The thief blinked, then snorted and nodded. “Smart,” he said, moving the leg on the top of the other up and down. It wasn’t until then that Ouma noticed that the regular tall platform boots were gone, now replaced by similar ones, but lower and only ankle-high. “So he _does_ pay attention to the details, hm?”

“Of course I do,” Ouma scoffed. “What kind of detective would I be if I didn’t?”

“A very slow one,” Moriarty replied with a slow nod of his head again. “So do tell me, _detective._ What are you planning to do with me in this fine hotel on this fine night?”

Ouma crossed one leg over the other on the armchair, mirroring Moriarty’s position. He picked a loose strand of his hair, absently twirled it between his fingers, and shrugged boredly. “Just talk.”

Moriarty gave him a measured look, slowly licking his lips before biting up a smirk, and Ouma absolutely _did not_ let his eyes follow the movement or linger on his lips. He _did not._ “I see. So talking is what we’re gonna do,” he said, letting his tilted head rest on his left shoulder, and then chuckled softly. “You know, detective, if I didn’t know you any better, I would’ve thought that you were planning to make good use of this ol’ body of mine~”

Ouma managed to hold back a gasp and keep the serious facade at the last second. “As if I would sink as low as that.”

 _“What?!”_ Moriarty fake-gasped in surprise. “You’re gonna tell me that’s not why you decided to pick a hotel instead of literally any other place?!”

He inhaled deeply. “I picked this place because it's easy access. And because it was more likely that you would know it.”

“That’s a reasonable reason,” Moriarty nodded. “So you’re truly not planning on tying and roughing up my body? Aw.”

“Don’t- don’t look so _disappointed_ at that!” Ouma grunted, finally letting the tough facade slip. 

“Ah, there we go,” the thief giggled. “While I do think the serious persona you tried to put was sexy, I also like when you get mad. You pout and your nose gets red and it highlights your freckles. It’s cute.”

 _“Shu- shut up!”_ Ouma grunted again, already feeling his face growing red. Honestly, _curse_ his pathetic gay ass. “God, _why_ can’t we have a _normal conversation_ like the adults we are?”

“Are we not?” Moriarty raised an eyebrow. “Whether we are flirting or you are cursing my entire family up to the fifth generation, it’s still a conversation and I enjoy every piece of it. I like you, detective Ouma. You’re interesting.”

Ouma rolled his eyes. _“Of course_ I am interesting. Counting today, this is the third time I managed to meet you in person, while the police couldn’t even get a good photo for your wanted poster.”

“I know, right?! It was starting to bother me how they only used those half-assed sketches–which were not bad, by the way; they just couldn’t reproduce the magnificence of my face–, so I sent them my best selfie. Luckily, they will replace the sketches with the selfie.”

Once again, Ouma was struck dumbfounded by something regarding Moriarty’s selfies.

“You-” he started, staring flatly at the thief. “You did what?”

“I sent the police my best selfie so they could use it as my ‘wanted’ poster!” He repeated. “Of course, I edited some stuff in the pic so the police couldn’t track me down, so you’re still the only one to ever actually see my pretty face~”

Oh, that smug _bastard._

Ouma almost laughed at how unbelievable that guy was, but decided to not feed his ego and ignored the story in favor of just raising an eyebrow. “What makes you think I don’t have a camera attached to my outfit and I’m not recording this conversation right now?”

Moriarty raised an eyebrow back at him. “Well, are you?”

The detective opened a big smile, one of his devilish grins. “You underestimate me, _thief.”_

The thief snorted. “I could never underestimate you, my detective. You’re the only one able to catch me,” he smiled and, for a moment, Ouma’s heart skipped a beat, because smiling was an expression that looked good on Moriarty’s half-covered face.

But then he reached into his coat’s pocket and took a very familiar remote control from there, and Ouma caught himself hissing under his breath and cursing himself for being _stupid._

_He forgot about that goddamn remote control!_

“I figured you would try to deceive me, so I also took precautions,” Moriarty shook the control. “Though I must say, detective, I am upset. Did you really think I was that naive? That I would simply walk in defenseless because it was you who told me you just wanted to talk? Because you’re a pretty boy?”

Ouma reacted before he could think about it. He was not, actually, recording the conversation, but he still needed to contact Momota so he could leave the room and he _couldn’t_ contact his partner if Moriarty’s remote control was on.

He jumped off the armchair towards Moriarty, who was momentarily caught off guard by being suddenly attacked like that. “Gimme that!”

Moriarty widened his eyes behind his mask and stood as soon as Ouma jumped towards him, standing and lifting his arm high up so Ouma couldn’t reach the control. “Woah, hold up! W-wait, w-what are you doing?!”

“Give me the control!” Ouma hissed, trying to pull Moriarty’s arm down so he could get it –without the _ridiculously tall_ boots the thief usually wore, Moriarty was not as tall, but he was still tall nonetheless. “Give it to me!”

“I don’t think I will!” Moriarty said back, trying to pull Ouma away from him with his free arm while keeping the other high up, standing on his tiptoes to gain some additional weight. “While I _d-do_ appreciate the proximity, don’t you think you should at least _buy me dinner_ first?!”

“Shut up!” Ouma shouted, pulling Moriarty’s face away and trying to climb his arm at the same time, using his shoulders as support to jump towards the control. “Give me! The! _Control!”_

Moriarty, of course, didn’t do it. Instead, he poked Ouma hard in the stomach a couple of times to destabilize him and sneaked out of his grip when the detective bent over. “Stop tackling me!”

Ouma grunted, quickly recovering from having his stomach poked like that, then jumped towards the thief again. On his _back,_ to be more precisely.

“Woah, wait!”

“Give it to me, Moriarty!” Ouma hissed, trying to reach the control still in the criminal’s hand, but now extended forward instead of upwards. “Stop being a dick!”

Moriarty cursed under his breath. “I’m deeply sorry for this, detective,” he murmured, voice surprisingly soft, gripping Ouma’s arm. Ouma was about to tell him to fuck off when the thief suddenly threw his body backwards and sent both of them straight to the floor, making Ouma land painfully on his back with the thief over him.

He _‘oof’ed,_ going breathless for a brief moment, before promptly ignoring the pain in his back in favor of putting Moriarty in a sleeper hold before he could move away from him. His hair annoyingly fell on his face, probably coming off the ribbon that tied it in the middle of the struggle. “I’m not- _argh-_ letting go of you!”

“Detective, _please_ stop attacking me before one of us gets hurt!” Moriarty pleaded, sounding a bit stressed, struggling to escape Ouma’s grip, but Ouma was not going to back down now. He needed the control off to contact Momota so they could arrest this fucker!

“Give me the goddamn control and I’ll stop!” Ouma grunted angrily, wrapping his legs around Moriarty’s waist to keep him down, still struggling to get the control now up in the air again. Fuck, _why_ did he have to pick up a hotel with _soundproof walls?!_ He couldn’t even _yell_ at Momota to help him!

It was Moriarty’s turn to grunt. “Okay, _enough.”_

In a fluid motion, so fast that Ouma barely saw it, Moriarty spinned his torso around and forced Ouma to let go of his half-assed sleeper hold, easily changing their positions and now pinning the detective to the floor, holding his arms down. While holding Ouma’s stare, he threw the control away, then arched his eyebrows.

“While I would _love_ to give you a lot of things, the control is not one of them. Sorry, detective.”

 _Fuck,_ and _there it goes_ his attempt to arrest that fucker.

 _But_ arresting _him was not the only thing he could do,_ Ouma thought. As he considered it, a very, _very_ bad idea came to mind.

If you can’t catch the criminal, expose his identity.

So throwing out the window the last piece of sense that still remained, Ouma glared daggers at Moriarty for half a second, angrily broke free of his grip, pulled his face down, and kissed him.

This seemed to catch the thief off guard, for he gasped loudly against Ouma’s mouth before completely freezing, and for some reason, it _infuriated_ Ouma –Moriarty’s been flirting _hard_ with him since day one, annoying the shit out of him with his _‘relationship’_ and _‘date’_ and _‘fated nemesis’_ conversation, but the moment Ouma kisses him, he shuts down?! What kind of person does that?! Oh, _of course_ this dude would be all bark and no bite!

But the _shutting down_ didn’t last long. After a moment of being unresponsive, Moriarty hummed and slowly moved his lips, kissing Ouma back, and this time, it was Ouma who gasped.

Moriarty pressed their mouths further, tilting his head to the side so their lips could fit better, and Ouma sighed in the kiss. He pressed back angrily, holding Moriarty’s neck with both hands while the thief used one of his to support his weight over Ouma and the other to grip his waist firmly, sticking his tongue out and licking the thief’s bottom lip to deepen the kiss. Moriarty gasped again, but easily complied, almost shyly opening his mouth to allow Ouma’s tongue in, savouring his kiss. Both of them sighed again, and Ouma pressed even further; deepening the kiss, making it more intense, more sensual, more dirty.

 _Distracting_ the thief.

Once he was sure Moriarty was sufficiently distracted, Ouma opened his eyes while still kissing the thief. Slowly, he slid his hands up towards his mask, hoping he was being subtle enough, and right when he was about to complete his plan-

Moriarty gripped his hands and moved them away from his face.

Still kissing him, Moriarty hummed. “That’s a low-blow, detective,” he murmured against his lips. “Distracting me with a kiss just so you could take off my mask.”

Ouma grunted, parting their lips. They were still connected by a thin line of saliva, which made Ouma’s eyes linger on Moriarty’s kiss-swollen lips. “It was worth a shot.”

Moriarty snorted under his breath, and the sound tickled Ouma’s lips because of their proximity. “Shall we resume or p-part ways for tonight?”

Ouma considered that for a moment. Then, he didn’t.

Fuck, his plan had already gone to shit, so why not?

He sighed.

“Kiss me again.”

And Moriarty promptly obliged.

This time, Ouma allowed himself to be selfish and enjoy the kiss. Moriarty this time held his arms but kissed him as deeply as before, intensely, dirtily, with all the tongues and teeth and dirty sounds and _God,_ this guy was a _criminal_ –his kiss shouldn’t be that good, that addictive. His lips shouldn’t taste that fucking _good._ What the hell was Ouma _thinking?!_

The kiss, however, didn’t last long, because Moriarty suddenly parted their lips when his coat pocket started buzzing. The thief widened his eyes behind his mask and pressed his lips in a thin line, then smiled at Ouma beneath him, breathlessly. “As much as I would _love_ to continue this, I’m afraid I have to go.”

“What?” Ouma blinked, not quite absorbing the words, and then blinked again when he finally did. _“What?!_ No, you’re not!”

Moriarty chuckled, rolling to the side before standing and tapping the dirt off his clothes. “That was _fantastic,_ my detective. I loved this little _‘conversation’_ of ours~”

Ouma grunted. “Come back here!” He stood and tried to chase the criminal, but it wasn’t until he took the first step that he noticed three little things:

One: Moriarty, somehow, tied his shoelaces together while they were making out without Ouma noticing it, which caused Ouma to fall flat on his face when he tried to run after him because he hadn’t noticed it until it was too late –and while that _was_ an asshole move to make, Moriarty _still_ tried to catch him when he fell, but he fell way too fast for either of them to properly react.

Two: Moriarty, somehow, _also_ tied both his hands behind his back while they were making out the second time, probably using his hair ribbon, which meant that Ouma had no way of easing the landing when he fell and caused him to now have a stinging and bleeding nose besides his wounded pride (he had lost to that fucking guy _three times in a row_ now).

And three: There was a very, _very_ apparent bulge in his pants. A bulge that Moriarty _noticed_ before Ouma fell.

The thief chuckled again. “Is that your gun, or are you happy to see me?”

Ouma humphed, looking away from the thief. He didn’t know if his face was hot because he was blushing or because his nose was bleeding. “I hate you.”

“Sure you do, my love,” Moriarty snorted, then walked to his remote control (with short and unsteady steps, Ouma noticed. His ankle must’ve still been aching after being sprained, and the way Ouma added quite a few more pounds to it when he jumped in Moriarty’s back must have aggravated the pain) that was thrown somewhere next to the window and picked it up. He pocketed it, blew a kiss to Ouma and walked to the door.

Ouma, too tired and ashamed to give him chase, just grumbled while still laying flat on his stomach on the dirty floor. “It’s locked. I threw the key in the corridor.”

Moriarty looked at him and raised an eyebrow, easily fishing lock-picking tools from his pocket. Ouma grumbled again. “Do you _seriously_ think that poorly of me, detective?” He said, skillfully unlocking the door in no time. “I thought you knew me best.”

The detective sighed, defeated. He _knew_ that Moriarty knew how to lock-pick –he had lock-picked the bathroom door to escape after the robbery back at the art gallery on their first encounter. But he didn’t think the thief would lock-pick the hotel room to leave. Ouma thought Moriarty would leave the room handcuffed after Ouma arrested him, not that the thief would walk out freely after a short but heated makeout session while Ouma was lying on his stomach with his hands tied behind his back, his shoelaces also tied, with a bleeding nose and a severely damaged pride.

What a crazy night.

By the door, Moriarty waved at Ouma. “I’m terribly sorry to end our night like this, but duty calls. I also apologize for the bleeding nose, but it’s not like you also didn’t hurt me, hm?” To prove his point, he raised his leg and softly hit his wounded ankle. “So we’re even now.”

“Next time,” Ouma grunted. “Next time, I’m gonna kick your ass.”

Moriarty giggled. “I’ll be counting on it.”

And then left the room, leaving Ouma with his pathetic bleeding nose, wounded pride and racing heart behind.

Once again, Ouma let the phantom thief escape. But this time, he didn’t mind.

Because he knew they would cross paths again.

It didn’t keep him from shouting in frustration, however. _“Fuck!”_

Not even a minute after his shout, Momota appeared in the corner with Iruma in pursuit, running to the room’s door. “Ouma! Ouma, I heard you yell! I know you said to give you two a moment to talk before bursting in but I-” he cut himself mid sentence, apparently finally seeing Ouma lying on his stomach on the floor. Judging by the way Momota hesitated and Iruma _eeked,_ they could only see his legs, and Ouma figured it was not a good sign to walk into a room after hearing a scream and being immediately greeted with the sight of someone lying flat on the floor. “... Ouma? A-are you okay, man?”

Ouma sighed. “I’m alive, Momota-chan. If that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Oh, thank God,” Momota and Iruma both sighed in relief, crossing the distance between them. While Iruma sat on the bed, Momota stopped by his feet, then started giggling. “Dude, what the hell happened to you?”

“Don’t ask,” Ouma sighed again. “Untie my hands.”

“I’m gonna turn you around, hold on.”

“Mhm,” Ouma nodded, but then he was suddenly reminded of the… _Situation,_ in his pants, and _who was in the room,_ and he widened his eyes. _“Wait, Momota-chan, don’t-”_ but it was already too late.

Momota turned him around, and fell silent. “... Dude.”

_“Don’t.”_

“Dude, why do you have a boner?”

Ouma hissed. “I said _don’t,”_ he repeated, and then started to angrily untie his shoelaces. 

As soon as she heard the word ‘boner’, Iruma leaned over the bed to peek and then started laughing hysterically. “So you had a _‘talk’_ with the thief, huh?” She said between laughter. _“Holy shit,_ Cockichi, I didn’t expect you to have a _criminal kink.”_

Ouma didn’t even have forces to curse her or tell her to shut up, he just let her be. Momota started asking him questions about Moriarty soon after that, asking why the criminal was not there and why he found Ouma like that, but Ouma’s mind was already too far away.

The entire time he and Moriarty were kissing, he couldn’t stop thinking about how sweet, sweet Saihara would feel once he found out about that, about how heartbroken he would feel after all they’ve been through. But at the same time, his mind was hazy and his heart was beating like crazy and his entire body was hot because of Moriarty, and it was not the first time the thief managed to get him like that.

He couldn’t stop thinking about how fucking _fucked_ he was, buried up to the neck with problems he never thought he would have.

Ouma found himself stuck in some sort of purgatory between heaven and hell, with an angel with lovely golden-grayish eyes and long dark gray sweaters sitting on his left shoulder and a masked demon in tall platform boots and long navy-blue hair sitting on the other, and he simply couldn't tell which one pleased him the best.

 _❝_ _Now that I got a taste, I'm gonna hallucinate,  
_ _I think that I am tripping off your love.  
_ ** _Started playing your games, you got me in a checkmate,  
_** ** _Now you are the queen, and I'm the pawn_** ❞

_– Ashes, Stellar_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gay gay homosexual gay.
> 
> I GOT FANART FOR THE FIC!!! Check out this lovely art of [Moriarty](https://twitter.com/sethphobia/status/1360436475419111424) that [@sethphobia](https://twitter.com/sethphobia) made on Twitter! Thank you so so much for this amazing art!!
> 
> Question: Aside from the obvious ones, who do you guys think are part of Saihara's criminal boyband?

**Author's Note:**

>  _*Britney Spears' ''Criminal" playing in the backgound*_  
>    
> Oh! Oh! Wanna know what Moriarty looks like? Wanna? Wanna? I gotcha! [I drew his outfit](https://www.instagram.com/p/CKIqktPseUV/), check this out. He's sexy.
> 
> Also, [playlist for the fic](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3IViYgIJXGfmHvSxF9lB8J?si=SSVkmJ1JRhK31pdcQfh2Bg) too because I have zero self-control! 
> 
> Ooohh and just a thing before I forget: while I wouldn't call Ouma an unreliable narrator, please do have in mind that you ARE seeing the story in his point of view, so certain things are limited to his pov only. While he is a smart little shit, he DOES NOT know everything, so there are things he says/thinks here that are not the truth –not because he's lying to you, but simply because he doesn't know that those things aren't true.
> 
> What you will do with this information and about what parts exactly I'm talking about is up to you :) *laughs malefically*
> 
> See ya next time!


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